When the crowd evaluates soccer players’ market values: Accuracy and evaluation attributes of an online community

Highlights• This research describes how an online community with interest in professional soccer evaluates players’ market values.• The community's market-value estimates are excellent predictors of actual transfer fees.• The community evaluations can largely be predicted using an econometric model that contains two blocks of determinants.• Blocks: measures that are directly related to players’ talent and variables that result from judgments by external sources.• Organizing variables into these two blocks provides a more differentiated look at the popularity of players.