Monopoly in Professional Sports

Sidelined: employment relations in professional sports

Teaching competition in professional sports leagues

In recent years there has been some dispute over the appropriate way to model decisionmaking in professional sports leagues. In particular, Szymanski and Kesenne (2004), argue that formulating the decision-making problem as a noncooperative game leads to radically different conclusions about the nature of competition in sports leagues. This paper describes a simulation model that van be used in...

The Peculiar Externalities of Professional Team Sports

The economics literature has long been divided regarding whether competing sports teams can achieve the same, efficient allocation of playing skills that a revenue-maximizing league monopolist would choose despite the external effects the teams impose on each other in their pursuit of athletic talent. In this article an explicit consideration of the arbitrage incentives that underlie the market...

The competitiveness of games in professional sports leagues

A sports game is about competition. The competitiveness of a game is important in terms of fan interest. Teams ahead or behind in a non-competitive game may also be more likely to substitute reserve players to reduce risk of injury to key players or gain experience for lesser-used players. Changes in how a team plays in a non-competitive game also impact secondary competitions such as betting o...

The Economic Impact of Postseason Play in Professional Sports∗

An empirical examination of the determinants of real per capita income in cities with professional sports teams from 1969-1997 shows that postseason appearances are not associated with any change in the level of real per capita income in these cities. However, in the city that is home to the winning team from the Super Bowl, real per capita personal income is found to be higher by about $140, p...