During the last decades, technological improvements and globalization effects have enlarged the scope and the intensity of winner-takes-all markets in which a few talented superstars earn enormous amounts of money. While superstar status is generally based on the provision of high quality services, recent information technology and mass media have allowed a new type of stars to emerge: trivial celebrities who are just known for being well-known.

Using both elaborate econometrical and microeconomic tools, Stephan Nüesch investigates the driving forces of superstar and celebrity emergence, the efficiency of superstar salaries in professional sports, and the star attraction of superstars and celebrities both in sports and in the media. The author provides an economic theory of very famous but trivial celebrities.

This thesis is a valuable contribution for scholars and students in the fields of personnel, sports and media economics as well as for executives in the entertainment industry.