About

Hua Gong is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport Management at Rice University. His research focuses on three primary areas within the field of sport management: sports analytics, sports economics, and sport sociology. In sports analytics, he has a particular interest in basketball analytics, applying quantitative methods to better understand the game. His work in sports economics investigates the factors that influence individuals' decisions to participate in, watch, attend, and follow sports, providing insights into the economic behaviors surrounding sports consumption. Additionally, his research in sport sociology explores the role of sport in society and its impact on social outcomes, examining how sports influence and reflect broader social dynamics.

Research topics

• Business
• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Economics
• Advertising
• Political Science
• Marketing
• Applied psychology
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Mathematics
• Demographic economics
• Geography

Selected publications

• The Effect of the Crowd on Home Bias: Evidence from NBA Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic

  Journal of Sports Economics · 2022 · 32 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Advertising
  • Psychology

  The present study examines a specific type of referee biases, home bias, and analyzes how the presence of fans affects home bias by using NBA games played in empty arenas during the COVID-19 pandemic in the 2020-2021 season and matches played before the pandemic from 2017 to 2020. This research also uses a unique data set from NBA Last Two Minute Reports to assess referees' performance at the play level. The findings show crowd support does not cause referees to treat home and away teams differently in crucial situations during the NBA regular season, contrary to the results in most prior studies.

  DOI

• Exploring tanking strategies in the NBA: an empirical analysis of resting healthy players

  Sport Management Review · 2021 · 11 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Marketing
  • Economics

  To date, a number of research studies have examined sport leagues for potential evidence of teams strategically losing games on purpose. Following tournament theory, it is believed sport teams will engage in such practices, often called tanking, in order to gain rewards in the form of better draft picks. Where prior research typically focused on detecting evidence of underperformance by teams, the present research analyzed one possible tanking strategy – the resting of healthy players. Specifically using data from National Basketball Association regular season games from the 2006–07 to 2017–18 seasons, we develop a count model of the number of players who are rested by teams. Furthermore, we utilize a natural experiment to consider whether teams eliminated from playoff contention rest more players. Poisson regression estimates found that eliminated teams will rest more players than others, and that the number of players rested by eliminated teams will increase as the competition for draft picks increases. As such, this study is one of the first to show how teams are able to purposefully lose games, with the strategy being instituted through managerial decisions rather than shirking by workers.

  DOI

• Do Consumer Perceptions of Tanking Impact Attendance at National Basketball Association Games? A Sentiment Analysis Approach

  Journal of Sport Management · 2021 · 40 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Advertising

  The use of big data in sport and sport management research is increasing in popularity. Prior research generally includes one of the many characteristics of big data, such as volume or velocity. The present study presents big data in a multidimensional lens by considering the use of sentiment analysis. Specifically focusing on the phenomenon of tanking, the purposeful underperformance in sport competitions, the present study considers the impact that consumers’ sentiment regarding tanking has on game attendance in the National Basketball Association. Collecting social media posts for each National Basketball Association team, the authors create an algorithm to measure the volume and sentiment of consumer discussions related to tanking. These measures are included in a predictive model for National Basketball Association home game attendance between the 2013–2014 and 2017–2018 seasons. Our results find that the volume of discussions for the home team and sentiment toward tanking by the away team impact game attendance.

  DOI

Frequent coauthors

• Matthew T. Brown

  Piedmont Henry Hospital

  3 shared

• Nicholas M. Watanabe

  3 shared

• Mark S. Nagel

  3 shared

• Landy Di Lu

  University of Minnesota

  2 shared

• Brian P. Soebbing

  University of Alberta

  2 shared

• Yusing Gu

  1 shared

• Kathryn L. Heinze

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  1 shared

• Fan Hu

  Tongren Hospital

  1 shared

Similar researchers at Rice University

• Menachem Elimelechh-209
• Pulickel Ajayanh-204
• James Tourh-178
• Naomi J. Halash-173
• Frank Geurtsh-157