Knocking on sports clubs’ doors: A field experiment on ethnic discrimination in Germany

Sports participation gaps persist among certain demographic groups in many countries. Lower participation levels not only compromise the health of these groups, but also undermine social cohesion. We conduct a large-scale field experiment to uncover the dynamics of discrimination against immigrants and ethnic minorities across multiple amateur sports. By emailing more than 8,900 sports clubs across seven popular sports in Germany, we find that individuals with native-sounding names are more likely to receive positive responses, with Syrian- and Turkish-sounding names facing the largest differences. The pattern persists across various sports, with some heterogeneity. Openly asking about club membership fees in the email has no influence. The results are robust to alternative models and specifications, including a data-driven causal random forest approach. We discuss implications for governing bodies, attitudes toward foreigners in German society, and future research in this field.