Explore the vast range of titles available.

\"In the final volume of Dixon's Nightwing run, Dick Grayson is emotionally and physically pushed to his breaking point. Dick Grayson searches within for what it is to be a hero in the aftermath of the Joker's latest reign of terror. Just before he can catch his breath, another shocking development threatens everything he has ever known, as Bruce Wayne is charged with murder! This volume also features appearances from the Flash, Blue Beetle and the rest of the Bat-Family.\"-- Provided by publisher.

This research investigates player career performance compared to their National Hockey League (NHL) draft position as it relates to nepotism and physical/human capital transfer. After identifying family members of former players, we analyze their performance compared to others using a sample of over 1100 players from the 2005–2010 drafts. We find no evidence of nepotism as it relates to sons in relation to earnings and only slight possible evidence in terms of reaching a low minimum games-played threshold. Although sons appear to be drafted appropriately, players with NHL siblings appear to be significantly undervalued as they outperformed their peers.

Born in fire. Raised by monsters. Destined to smash! On an alien planet shattered by war, no one is stronger than Skaar -- the savage Son of Hulk! But as a warlord and a princess spread chaos through the wastelands, will Skaar save the puny survivors -- or eat them? Skaar seeks the mysterious Old Power, but can even he stop the coming of the Silver Surfer-and Galactus the Devourer? The soothsayers sing: One day, monsters will clash -- the boy will confront the man who abandoned him. When the Son of Hulk seeks vengeance on his father, will Earth be turned into Planet Skaar?

This research investigates player career performance compared to their National Hockey League (NHL) draft position as it relates to nepotism and physical/human capital transfer. After identifying family members of former players, we analyze their performance compared to others using a sample of over 1100 players from the 2005-2010 drafts. We find no evidence of nepotism as it relates to sons in relation to earnings and only slight possible evidence in terms of reaching a low minimum games-played threshold. Although sons appear to be drafted appropriately, players with NHL siblings appear to be significantly undervalued as they outperformed their peers.

Previous research has determined that home field advantage (HFA) is positively related to crowd density. Isolating this effect is a substantial empirical challenge as crowd density is endogenous with home win-likelihood via fan interest. We consider a natural-experimental setting that introduces exogenous crowd-density variation into National Football League (NFL) games. COVID-19 safety protocols allow us to disentangle crowd-presence, crowd-density, and built-environment effects upon HFA. We find strong evidence that crowd presence is a significant, substantial source of HFA, but crowd density is not. No-crowd games in 2020 featured no measurable HFA conditional upon team strengths, whereas partially fan-restricted games featured no significant decline in HFA relative to games without crowd restrictions (2016-2019 and 2021). Results suggest HFA is fully attributable to crowd presence, with no evidence of stadium familiarity or travel distance effects. Betting markets efficiently predicted the partial-crowd effect from season's outset but adjusted incrementally (behaviorally) to incorporate the true no-crowd effect only by season's end.

Performance compared to expectations is important in evaluation of Chief Executive Officers, managers, and coaches. In many industries, expectation metrics are difficult to estimate or obtain. In professional sports, however, futures markets exist for season performance. In many sports, such as the NFL, there exists a wagering option on season win totals. A season win total is an over/under bet on the number of wins a team will have in a given season. We utilize this market to calculate actual versus expected performance and include this in a model of coach retention. The issue of treatment discrimination of minority coaches is explored.

Data on betting percentages, both in terms of number of bets and actual money wagered, is still difficult to find.  Sports Action Network, in their premium access service, does provide this data in terms of both number of bets and money bet.  For the2020 NFL season, it was found that the balanced book could be rejected as bettors were shown to prefer road favorites, big favorites, and the over at the highest totals.  Allowing this imbalance in the sides market appeared profitable for the book as the underdog won more often than implied by efficiency, while totals were evenly split.

PurposePurpose of the study is to further expand insights into how weather impacts attendance at sporting events. With the NFL having only eight home games a year per team, it is more of an event than other North American sports. We explore this in terms of how sensitive fans are to weather, by not only looking at traditional factors, but also other weather variables available through Accuweather. In addition, the authors explore team success, outcome uncertainty and other factors as determinants of demand.Design/methodology/approachThe method includes Tobit model of attendance in terms of percent of capacity in the National Football League. Model includes factors such as outcome uncertainty, team success, etc. but mainly focuses on weather. Weather factors studied include traditional variables such as temperature and precipitation, and also includes cloud cover, barometric pressure, wind speed and humidity. Different model specifications are included to explore results. Key findings allow for differences between games played outdoors versus indoors.FindingsIn terms of control variables, team success, new stadiums and stadium age play a significant role in attendance in terms of percentage of capacity. Outcome uncertainty does not appear to be important, and fans desire the opposite when the home team is an underdog. The main results concern the weather. When only traditional weather variables are included, precipitation plays a key role. With further expansion of the weather variables, it appears that cloud cover offers some additional information beyond precipitation. In addition, barometric pressure plays a minor, but statistically significant role as it relates to attendance in terms of capacity.Research limitations/implicationsIncluding deeper and richer weather data helps to further explain attendance at sporting events. With the NFL, this may be limited by it being such as event due to the scarcity of games in a season. In addition, the weather variables are not truly independent, although they are not as correlated as may be anticipated on the surface. Use of different types of weather variables in models of attendance may help to deepen our understanding of factors influencing consumer decisions. These factors may play larger roles in sports with wider variance in attendance during the season.Practical implicationsThe practical implications are that other weather-related variables besides temperature and precipitation may offer insight into consumer decisions related to attendance at sporting events. Cloud cover gives insights into anticipated poor weather in addition to it directly leading to less of a sunny day to be outdoors at an event. Barometric pressure has been shown to influence headaches and joint pain and may also influence consumer decisions to venture out to sporting events.Social implicationsAs data becomes more widely available in general, it's possible to add additional insights into factors influencing various forms of decision-making. In this study, we show that more information on weather can shed insights into consumer decisions as it relates to attending events such as sports. These decisions likely differ based upon whether the event is held outdoors or indoors. With more entertainment choices as substitutes, it is important to identify key factors which influence consumer decisions to help better structure events in the future.Originality/valueWeather variables beyond temperature and precipitation are included in a Tobit model for NFL attendance using percentage of capacity as the dependent variable. These weather variables are cloud cover, wind speed, humidity, and barometric pressure. Cloud cover and barometric pressure were found to have some significant effects on percentage of capacity. When included, precipitation itself is no longer found to be significant, but precipitation interacted with games played in domes retains statistical significance as there are key differences between games held outdoors versus indoors.

This study extends the research on atmospheric conditions and scoring in sporting events by examining components of air density as it relates to National Football League (NFL) games. Statistically significant results were found in relation to the role of humidity in explaining the difference between actual scoring and the betting market total for NFL games. Simple wagering strategies based on humidity, wind speed, and a combination of these factors were shown to reject market efficiency. From game statistics, it appears that humidity may unexpectedly influence the rushing game, leading to greater than expected scoring when humidity is high.