The Birthplace Effect describes the relationship between the population of one’s birthplace or hometown and the likelihood of becoming an elite athlete. In an early study in this area, Coˆte´, MacDonald, Baker, and Abernethy (2006) examined professional athletes from North American basketball, ice hockey, baseball, and golf leagues/associations and noted that while over half of the US population lives in cities with above 500,000 inhabitants, significantly fewer US professional athletes come from communities of this size. Athletes were more likely to originate from areas with less than 500,000 people, with the highest odds for communities with 50,000 100,000 inhabitants. Similarly, United States and Canadian National Hockey League draftees were more likely to come from communities with 30,000 to 1 million inhabitants. Communities with less than 10,000 inhabitants appeared disadvantageous for ice hockey attainment, as were large urban areas. Since these initial studies, the effect has been extended to other countries and sports, including female professional sports, Australian football and rugby, North American and European Olympians, German handball, international ice hockey players, and Israeli team sports (for a review see Wattie, MacDonald, & Cobley, 2015).
While the effect has been largely consistent in North American samples, international results have been mixed. Researchers have proposed that the effect is likely due to qualitative differences in athletes’ early developmental environments. Furthermore, the consistency of the effect in North American contexts, coupled with the varied results in other countries suggests these mechanisms relate to social and/or cultural factors specific to the country under examination and, importantly, that population is only a proxy for environmental influences on athlete development. Unfortunately, studies in this area have been almost exclusively descriptive and hypotheses regarding mechanisms have yet to be examined empirically.
