Nicolas Scelles

Nicolas Scelles is a Reader in the Manchester Metropolitan University's Faculty of Business and Law, Sport Policy Unit. He researches Sports Economics, Sports Finance and Sports Management. His research is mainly but not restricted to the economics of professional football. His expertise is more specifically on competitive balance and intensity. Sport economists have worked for a long time on the concept of competitive balance, i.e. the need for teams having close sporting strengths so as to generate uncertainty of outcome and thus fan demand. Based on an idea initially developed by Kringstad and Gerrard in the 2000s, he has built an alternative concept with competitive intensity which suggests that specific sporting prizes can generate uncertainty of outcome even when there is no competitive balance between teams. His main focuses are on:
- understanding the determinants and measuring the uncertainty of sporting outcomes in football games;
- assessing their impact on fan demand, measured both by stadium attendance and television audience, and club value and solvency;
- reflecting on how sporting organisations can act upon them, e.g. how an organiser can adapt its competition format to generate more uncertainty and thus fan demand.
He has published extensively in international academic journals and is regularly invited speaker in international conferences.