Ask not what economics can do for sports - Ask what sports can do for economics

In this article we list the advantages of using sports data for economic research. We also provide a rich overview of economic literature that used sports data to test different fundamental economic theories as well as articles that presented divergences of economic decision making from neo-classical theories. Finally we present articles that were published in this special issue on behavioral economics and decision making in sports, all of which try to answer more general questions by means of sports data.