The Economic Consequences of Professional Sports Strikes and Lockouts

The National Basketball Association (NBA) lockout of 1998-1999 resulted in the cancellation of a significant number of games. According to the claims made by proponents of sports-driven economic growth, cities with NBA franchises should experience significant negative economic losses from this work stoppage because of the lost spending in and around basketball arenas during this event. Although it will be several years before adequate data exist for a careful ex post evaluation of the effects of the lockout, an examination of the impact of past work stoppages in professional football and basketball can shed some light on the potential impact of the NBA lockout as well as the viability of professional sports as engines of economic growth in cities. The parameter estimates from a reduced-form empirical model of the determination of real per capita income in 37 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSAs) over the period 1969-1996 suggest that prior work stoppages in professional football and baseball had no impact on the economies of cities with franchises. Further, the departure of professional basketball from cities had no impact on their economies in the following years. These results refute the idea that attracting professional sports franchises represents a viable economic development strategy.     

Stee-rike four! What's wrong with the business of baseball? edited by Daniel R. Marburger praeger press, 1997, 218 pp.

This is a review of a 14-article volume edited by Daniel R. Marburger. These articles examine such topics as collective bargaining, player salaries, antitrust issues, and the problems of and future prospects for baseball. Major league baseball is an unregulated monopolist whose plant (stadium) is government-subsidized and whose unionized workers (players) share the monopoly profit with management. This sharing has led to considerable labor strife including strikes and lockouts. The major issues discussed in the book include the competitive imbalance as a result of large differences in team revenues, the player salary cap, and revenue sharing. The principal conclusions of the book include the marginal economic impact and benefits of a team on a city and the need to permit low-revenue teams to migrate.     

Team promotion in early major league baseball and the origin of the closed sports league

I argue that a quasi team-promotion system similar to European professional sports leagues once existed in the US, contrary to common perceptions. The first American pro team sport was baseball. From the creation of the first major league in 1876 to the early 1890s, entry was common, occurring primarily by the “promotion” of clubs in operation the previous season. The informal system ended abruptly after an 1892 merger that formed the prototype closed monopoly sports league. Empirical analysis indicates that the cessation of entry reduced competitive balance, and that in their initial year promoted teams outperformed new start-ups. While historians have recognized the elimination of between-league competition as an underlying motive for the monopoly merger, the simultaneous elimination of club entry and competition for league membership has gone virtually unnoticed.     

Sport and Measurement of Competition

Summary  Sport is becoming an activity of increasing importance: over time more people participate in sport (active sport consumption), more time is spent watching sport (passive sport consumption). An important part of sport consumption is passive sport consumption where production and consumption are separate: (professional) athletes engage in a contest, and fans pay to watch the contest. An important characteristic of sport that generates this demand is relative competition: the competitiveness of a particular match or league. In this paper, we set out to measure competitive balance in three sports (soccer, tennis, and skating), and assess its development over time. As we separate variation in quality of teams or athletes from randomness of outcome, we can compare relative competition in these three sports. Part of this paper was written when I enjoyed the hospitality of the University of Salford. I thank David Forrest, Ian McHale, and Bertus Talsma for fruitful discussions. Bertus Talsma helped to get the skating data. All calculations and graphs were done using R (R Development Core Team 2008). An Appendix with additional tables and graphs is available on .     

Monopsony and competition: The impact of rival leagues on player salaries during the early days of baseball

During the early days of professional baseball, the dominant major leagues imposed a “reserve clause” designed to limit player wages by restricting competition for labor. Entry into the market by rival leagues challenged the incumbent monopsony cartel's ability to restrict compensation. Using a sample of player salaries from the first 40 years of the reserve clause (1880–1919), this study examines the impact of inter-league competition on player wages. This study finds a positive salary effect associated with rival league entry that is consistent with monopsony wage suppression, but the effect is stronger during the 20th century than the 19th century. Changes in levels of market saturation and minor-league competition may explain differences in the effects between the two eras.     

The short run demand for major league baseball

Conclusions In this paper an attempt was made to analyze those factors which determine the short run demand for baseball. This work represents the first of its kind in the baseball industry. The regression results provide new insight in assessing the specific variables which enter into a fan's decision to attend a particular baseball game. These results should be of considerable importance to team owners and league officials who attempt to maximize interest and therefore attendance in professional baseball.     

Managers,specific human capital,and firm productivity in major league baseball

Recent research on the role of managers in firms concentrates on the relationship between compensation and individual performance, which links managerial skills and firm production only indirectly. In this paper, two related analyses test this link directly by examining how the experience of major league baseball managers affects both team and individual player performance. Grouped-data probit estimates indicate that, with team skills held constant, the probability of winning depends on the baseball-specific human capital of the manager. Further estimates, using the first-stage managerial attributes, also indicate that individual player performance improves when traded to "better-trained" managers.     

Widespread Corruption in Sports Gambling: Fact or Fiction?

We examine whether point-shaving is widespread in National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball by comparing bet and game outcomes with those in professional sports. Results suggest that unusual patterns previously suspected to be indicators of point-shaving are ubiquitous throughout sports and unlikely to be caused by corruption. We suggest that line shading by sports books may explain the anomalies in game and bet outcome distributions.     

The demand for minor league baseball

Conclusions Overall our model explains 80 percent of the variation in attendance at minor league baseball games for 27 teams over the 1973–77 seasons. This is a remarkable proportion of the variance to be explained by a pooled cross-section-time-series model with 86 observations. Demmert's model explained 58 percent of the variation in per capita attendance in major league baseball over the 1951–69 period and Noll's model explained 69 percent of the variation in absolute attendance at major league baseball games during 1970–71. The F-ratio indicates that our overall model is statistically significant.Our empirical estimation of the demand for minor league baseball attendance supports the general hypotheses one derives from the theory of consumer demand. As expected, the quantity demanded is negatively related to price; the elasticity of demand is less than one. Per capita income has little effect on attendance, but the quality and excitement of play seem to be important to fans. Surprisingly, winning has no effect on attendance. Promotional efforts appear to be effective in generating attendance, but paid advertising seems to be wholly ineffective.The authors received helpful comments on an earlier draft from Al Finegan, Robert Hays, Ira Horowitz, Larry Nelson and an anonymous referee. A less technical report on the subject of this article has been published inBusiness (January–February, 1980) by the same authors.     

Public Subsidies and the Location and Pricing of Sports

Using public choice analysis, we determine how government subsidies affect location and pricing decisions of sports teams. We explain how voter referendums can create suboptimal outcomes for local communities and identify winners and losers in sport team subsidies. Subsidy bidding leads to higher subsidies and fewer sport franchises but does not alter team location. Sport subsidies generate additional revenue for owners and players at taxpayer expense, and non‐fan taxpayers subsidize both the team and fans. To increase political support for subsidies, teams lower ticket prices below the apparent profit‐maximizing level, which may cause inelastic ticket prices and ticket shortages.     

Contest Theory and Sport

Contrary to most sports fans economists tend to view tournamentsnot only as a mechanism to identify the most able and most talentedathlete(s) but also as an instrument to increase the athletes'effort levels by designing an adequate compensation system thattakes into account the specificities of the contest under consideration.The paper proceeds in two different steps: First, it reviewsthe available evidence on sports contests and identifies somepuzzles that have not yet been resolved in the literature (theempirical separation of selection and incentive effects andthe impact of incentive pay in team settings). Second, it addressesthese puzzles and offers some new evidence supporting the basicassumptions offered by economic theory.     

工资收入权的保障制度

我国出现较为严重的拖欠工资问题是与工资收入权缺乏有效的制度保障相关。对工资性质的不同认识导致对拖欠工资合理与否产生歧议,这使得工资收入权保障制度建设陷于停滞。工资是劳动力的价格,当保障制度不完善时,劳动者与厂商之间的利益博弈会使双方背弃劳动力交易关系,转而构建劳动交易关系,结果必然导致厂商以经营状况或第三方责任为由拖欠工资。要保障工人的工资收入权,应当实行合同工资与风险共担、收益分享相结合的分配制度。     

The Impact of Cognitive and Noncognitive Skills on Professional Salaries in An Emerging Economy,Chile

Professional salaries in Chile are here explained on the basis not only of traditional human capital variables but also of variables indicative of other cognitive and noncognitive skills. As might be expected, college entrance scores (SAT), our measure of advanced cognitive skills, are found to impact strongly and nonlinearly on salaries. More surprisingly, ranking in one's high school graduation class raises one's salary 10 years later by the equivalent of one year of additional experience, suggesting that ranking stands for a more permanent noncognitive skill such as effort or self‐discipline. As is typically found, women earn less than men, but, to our surprise, they also have lower asking salaries than men.     

比较视域下电子竞技后备人才的培养模式及优化策略

为科学培养电子竞技后备人才,推动电竞项目可持续发展,运用比较分析法,概括了传统竞技项目和电子竞技后备人才培养模式.传统竞技项目主要有运动专业队模式、体教结合模式、职业化培养模式和社会化培养模式.电子竞技主要有自主训练模式、俱乐部培养模式、社会办学模式和游戏厂商联合培养模式.概述了电竞后备人才培养面对的独特问题及其在后备人才培养中的相对优势,提出电子竞技后备人才培养模式的优化路径,给出耦合培养目标、协同培养主体、服务培养对象、优化培养环境的优化策略.     

Where Are They Now? Tracking the Ph.D. Class of 1997

We report early career outcomes of economics Ph.D.s by tracking the U.S. class of 1996-1997. We examine employment outcomes, work activities, salaries, and graduates' attitudes toward their jobs. By 2003, all of the respondents were employed, although almost half changed employers during the six years. Salaries of the cohort increased at an average annual rate of 8.2% from 1997 through 2003. Academic-year salaries rose about 5.7% per year, whereas private sector salaries skyrocketed at 15% per year. Finally, the median salaries of first-year full-time permanent 9- to 10-month academic economists hired in 2002-2003 actually exceed the median 2003 salaries of their counterparts initially hired in 1997-1998. Some of this apparent salary inversion reflects a different mix of employers and departments between the two cohorts, with the younger group securing relatively more jobs at higher-paying institutions.     

Optimal wages for politicians

I consider a society that has to decide on the wage that it offers for an elected official. Potential candidates differ in their abilities, which determines their effectiveness in office and their opportunity cost. They consider the wage when deciding whether to enter as candidates, and if they do, how hard to campaign. The remuneration for the official that maximizes ordinary citizens’ expected utility is a function of the proportion of competent voters who are better informed about the quality of the candidates and are not influenced by the campaign. I use the data on U.S. governor salaries over six decades to evaluate some implications of the model. Specifically, the proportion of the state's population with a bachelor's degree—a proxy for the proportion of competent voters—is negatively correlated with the governors’ salaries when controlled for other factors.     

体育游戏法在高中篮球教学中的应用——以台州中学为例

体育游戏是以身体练习为基本手段,以增强体质,娱乐身心,陶冶性情为目的一种现代游戏方法,本文对体育游戏的特点、作用、在篮球教学中运用原则进行研究,以期体育游戏能更好的融入到高中篮球教学中。     

新疆劳动力三次产业间转移的特点及动因分析

随着国民经济的发展、人均国民收入的提高,出现了劳动力由第一产业即农业向第二、第三产业等非农部门转移的现象。新疆劳动力三次产业间转移呈现出与配第-克拉克定理关于劳动力三次产业间转移完全不同的特点。本文认为,这是由于新疆工业基础薄弱,服务业的技术、知识含量低,农村人口缺少专业技术等原因造成的。     

What Are SEC Football Tickets Worth? Evidence from Secondary Market Transactions

Tickets to sporting events are highly differentiated—seat location, date and time of the game, and home‐team and opponent qualities make each ticket unique. Preferences also differ nontrivially across fans, all of which make the supplier's pricing problem complex. We examine strategies employed by Southeastern Conference (SEC) universities in pricing their football tickets and evaluate their effectiveness in extracting surplus from fans. We use hedonic analysis of data collected from online secondary market transactions to construct a synthetic season ticket, which we compare to prices actually charged by university athletic departments. We also compare quality premiums charged by universities for better seats with market evaluations of those quality differences.     

Are Nigerian scientists and engineers effectively utilized? issues on the deployment of scientific and technological labor for national development

It is conventional for many developing countries to conceptualize the utilization of scientific and technological manpower in quantitative terms. A quantitativedefinition of manpower utilization ignores the effectiveness of application of workers' mental and physical abilities. This paper, therefore, presents a qualitative approach to understanding the possibility of Nigeria's scientific and technological manpower to contribute to national development through the effective deployment of their skills and capabilities.Using the conventional job satisfaction/work motivation variables of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards, perceived utilization of skills and capabilities was examined on two premises: (1) the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards experienced by Nigerian scientists and engineers are low relative to their original expectations; (2) perceived utilization of skills and capabilities will be greater under increased intrinsic than under increased extrinsic rewards of work. These propositions were tested with interview, observational and survey data collected from 266 Nigerian scientists and engineers selected from seven sectors in five Nigerian states.findings: The two hypotheses were confirmed. It was also found that different sectors have particular traits and processes which make for under-utilization of scientific and technological labor.