Sports EconomicsBuy now.
by Rodney D. Fort

coverThis unique book applies economic theory to the business of sports. It deals mainly with professional team sports (with a section devoted to college team sports), showing how supply and demand join at the market level, and how team owners act together through their leagues (or athletic departments through the NCAA) to facilitate their market power. This book will help the reader understand the business side of sports and how it impacts the games seen at the stadium or in the arena. Topics covered in this book are: demand, supply, and sports market outcomes; the market for talent and labor relations; government and the sports business; and college sports. With amusing anecdotes and interesting stories about sports business personalities, this book is for anyone who is involved in the economic side of sports and sports management.

Economics of Sports, The (2nd Edition)Buy now.
by Michael A. Leeds, Peter von Allmen

coverThis ground-breaking text on the economy of sports introduces core economic concepts and develops them with examples and applications from the sports industry.  With its unique framework, The Economy of Sports covers modern topics of micro and macroeconomics, illustrating such traditional elements as industrial organization, public finance, and labor economics. Modern, progressive subjects including the not-for-profit sector are explored from the vantage point of the sports economy.

The Economics of Professional Team SportsBuy now.
by Paul Downward, Alistair Dawson

coverA detailed survey of the economic literature on sporting leagues, the demand for professional team sports and the players' labor market.

 



Economics of College SportsBuy now.
by John Fizel (Editor), Rodney Fort (Editor)

cover“Well-referenced, the book will be of most interest to social scientists and legal scholars, but it should also be required reading for university trustees and administrators, for elected officials whose purviews include oversight and governance of intercollegiate sports, and for professionals in the sports field. Recommended. Public, academic, lower-division undergraduate and up, and professional library collections.”–Choice

May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public PolicyBuy now.
by Andrew Zimbalist

coverZimbalist, professor of economics at Smith College, is arguably the leading authority on sports economics in the country. His Baseball and Billions (1992) was one of the first books to take an educated look at the business of baseball, and since the release of that book, Zimbalist has spent thousands of hours researching and writing about the industry. His conclusion in his latest work, that baseball is in trouble, is not a new idea, but the reasons behind baseball's problems and Zimbalist's solutions combine to create an absorbing, provocative discussion. Zimbalist is no friend of baseball owners or baseball commissioner Bud Selig, and he devotes much space to tearing down arguments about the poor financial health of most teams and the need for cities to subsidize teams by paying for new stadiums. Expansion, not contraction, for example, would help spread out talent. The root cause of baseball's problems, Zimbalist argues, is its monopoly, and his most radical idea is for Congress to lift baseball's antitrust exemption and to force divestiture into two competitive leagues. But failing that, Zimbalist has a number of suggestions to improve the status of the game, including attracting younger fans by starting some World Series games at an earlier time; lowering ticket prices; and creating an owner/player partnership to study baseball's problems. At the very least, this volume provides baseball fans with enough material to allow them to engage in one of their favorite pursuits-arguing over what should be done to save the national pastime.

The Economics of FootballBuy now.
by Stephen Dobson, John Goddard

coverThis book presents an original economic analysis of the English professional football industry. The economic influences on decisions taken by owners, managers, players and spectators are all considered, using theoretical and empirical methods of economic investigation. The empirical analysis draws on English club-level data, with extensive international comparisons. Concludes with an extended discussion of a number of major economic policy issues affecting the future of the football industry, including European super league proposals, contractual arrangements in the players' labor market, and football's evolving relationship with the broadcasting media.

Unpaid Professionals : Commercialism and Conflict in
Big-Time College SportsBuy now.
by Andrew Zimbalist

coverAlthough many of the problems facing college athletics today have been around for decades, the explosion of money and media attention has so raised the stakes that college sports is on the verge of self-destruction, argues Zimbalist (Baseball and Billions), a professor of economics at Smith College. The National Collegiate Athletic Association was formed in 1905 to address the problem of violence in college football. Between 1890 and 1905, Zimbalist reports, 330 students were killed playing the game, and President Theodore Roosevelt was threatening to intervene. But as Zimbalist convincingly argues, the NCAA's record of regulating intercollegiate athletics has been spotty at best. In his view, the NCAA is nothing more than a cartel geared toward protecting the association's own interests, as well as that of its largest members. By only tinkering with its well-established system, he charges, the NCAA has never effectively dealt with such longstanding problems as low graduation rates, point shaving, illegal payments to athletes (by alumni, agents and others) and gender inequality (although Zimbalist does allow that the NCAA has grudgingly made some progress enforcing Title IX, the 1972 law that mandates that collegiate women have the same access to sports as men). Zimbalist, who knows his way around the locker room and a balance sheet, provides a compelling case for the need to reform college athletics.

 Advances in the Economics of Sport, Volume 1Buy now.
by Gerald W. Scully (Editor), 1993.

Includes:

  • Intrafirm Profit Opportunities and Managerial Slack: Evidence from Professional Basketball (R. McCormick, R. Clement).
  • The Rationality of Crime in a Basketball Economy (B. Goff, R. Tollison).
  • Coaching Quality, Turnover, And Longevity in Professional Team Sports (G. Scully).
  • Is Managerial Termination Rational?: Evidence In Professional Team Sorts (G. Scully).
  • Fields of Dreams: On the Construction of Professional Baseball Talent in Colleges and The Minor Leagues (W. Shughart, B. Goff).
  • Efficiency Aspects of the Major League Baseball Players’ Market (J. Hirschberg, G. Scully, D. Slottje)
  • Momentum In Sports (G. Scully).
  • Discrimination and Salary Determination in the National Hockey League: 1977 and 1989 Compared (M. Lavoie, G. Grenier).
  • The Great Football Wars: Entry into the Professional Team Sports Industry (J. Quirk, R. Saposnik).
  • College Athletics: Financial Burden or Boon? (M. Borland, B. Goff, R. Pulsinelli).
  • Market Advantage as Tent: Do Professional Team in Larger Markets Have A Competitive Advantage? (P. Porter).

Advances in the Economics of Sport, Volume 2 Buy now.
by Gerald W. Scully (Editor), 1997.

Includes:

  • Introducing a competitive economic environment into professional sports (R. Fort, J. Quirk).
  • A model of a professional sports league (Daniel A. Rascher).
  • Cities under siege: how the changing financial structure of professional sports is putting cities at risk and what to do about it (R.A. Baade, A.R. Sanderson).
  • Following the leader: race and player behavior in the 1987 NFL strike (C.L. Gramm, J.F. Schnell).
  • Using baseball card prices to assess free agency (C.J. Mullin, L.F. Dunn).
  • Do long-term contracts influence performance in major league baseball? (J.G. Maxcy).
  • Setting rules in the NCCA cartel (L. DeBrock, W. Hendricks).
  • Gender equity and the economics of college sports (A. Zimbalist).
  • Graduation rates of NFL players (L. DeBrock, W. Hendricks and R. Koenker).

Baseball and Billions: A Probing Look Inside the Buy now.
Business of Our National Pastime
by Andrew Zimbalist, 1994.

coverOne of the best analyses of the economic forces in the game. A must-read if you are interested in the business side of baseball. Examines the economics of baseball including salaries, revenue sharing, competitive balance, profitability, etc.



Baseball EconomicsBuy now.
by John Fizel (Editor), Elizabeth Gustafson (Editor), Lawrence Hadley (Editor), 1996.

coverThis collection of contributions by 14 professional economists analyzes the current economic issues in major league baseball. Most of these issues are related to the recent disputes between owners and players over a collective bargaining agreement and between large-market and small-market owners over revenue sharing. Issues addressed include the impact of the construction of new stadiums and racial discrimination on attendance. In addition, players' salaries, free agency, cost of player development, arbitration, luxury taxes, and labor relations in Japanese baseball are discussed. Includes numerous statistical tables.

Diamond Mines: Baseball & LaborBuy now.
by Paul D. Staudohar (Editor), et al, 2000.

coverTen essays by experts on the baseball strike of 1994, baseball's antitrust exemption, and "The Uses of History in Baseball Labor Disputes." Academic writers, but will be of great interest to dedicated fans and those interested in corporate behavior.



Diamonds Are Forever: The Business of Baseball Buy now.
by Paul M. Sommers (Editor), 1992.

coverAs every American knows, our nation's favorite pastime is also big business. The last fifteen years have been exceptionally good to the business of baseball with the growth in fan attendance, the spread of cable television, the burgeoning interest in cards and other baseball memorabilia, the historical appreciation of franchise values, the emergence of a powerful players' union, and average salaries that are almost twenty times their pre-1976 levels. Yet at this time of prosperity, major economic issues trouble the sport: the threat of franchise relocation, the continual flash points in collective bargaining, the growing commercialization of the game, the club owners' collusive response to free agency, lingering concerns of race discrimination, and the arguably tenuous link between player pay and performance.

The Economics and Politics of Sports Facilities Buy now.
by Wilbur C. Rich (Editor), 2000.

coverRich and his contributing authors give a far reaching, rigorous analysis of the impact that professional sports stadiums and arenas have on the economies of their host communities. Critical of, yet sympathetic to, the problems of the sports industry, the book emphasizes the cost of sports facilities and makes clear that as engines of economic development, they are of dubious value. Thoroughly researched and scrupulously objective, the book provides among other things the first comparative study of host cities, raises the question of the role of the sports media, and examines the "theater of sports" and its cultural meaning.

The Economics of Sports  Buy now.
by William S. Kern (Editor), 2000.

coverThe contributors to this book, all economists at the forefront of the movement to study the economics of sports, show how a host of contemporary economic issues come into play in  today's world of big-time sports.




Hard Ball: The Abuse of Power in Pro Team SportsBuy now.
by James P. Quirk, Rodney D. Fort, 2000.

coverAs important as it is depressing, Hard Ball takes a serious look at how professional sports in America has fans and communities in a vise grip. Salaries are out of control. Labor disputes and contract renegotiations are reported next to the standings. Corporate boxes and sponsorships determine the fate of stadiums. Owners hold cities hostage. In an arena in which teams are obsessed with profits over championships, bottom lines over win-loss records, and market bases over fan loyalties, the games themselves are really secondary, at best. A pair of economists, Quirk and Fort explore the ways the major sports--baseball, football, basketball, and hockey--have changed the way they do business in the last half of the 20th century as the balance of financial power has shifted overwhelmingly to the individual league monopolies. In any other industry, the authors contend, these monopolies would have long ago been banged around by Congress, and, indeed, they argue quite forcefully for their breakups. Neither their diagnosis of disease nor their prescription for cure are new. Still, what makes Hard Ball sadly necessary is how clearly and completely Quirk and Fort make their case that, for the good of sports, something's got to give.

Keeping Score: The Economics of Big-Time SportsBuy now.
by Richard G. Sheehan, 1997.

coverKeeping Score takes a much more empirical look at the economics of sports than other books.  Sheehan begins by examining the financial health of each of the four major US sports leagues based on available numbers from 1990-1994. Sheehan next discusses the issue of "competitive balance". While other authors have measured competitive balance by calculating the spread of win/loss records and concentration of league championships, Sheehan takes a different approach. He attempts to determine correlation and causation relationships between win/loss percentages, city market size, payrolls, and revenue. Sheehan also discusses league-imposed player restrictions such as the reserve clause and salary caps. The typical owner's conflict of winning vs. profits is discussed, including its effect on league competitiveness. Keeping Score concludes with a brief look at big-time college football and basketball programs and examines possible financial implications of paying student-athletes.  Keeping Score often reads more like an essay than a text book.

Major League Losers: The Real Cost of Sports and Who's Paying for ItBuy now.
by Mark S. Rosentraub, 1999.

coverIn meticulous detail, Rosentraub exposes what may be the most extravagant corporate welfare system in the United States today: the placement and maintenance of professional sports franchises. He marshals a dazzling array of statistics outlining the many ways well-heeled team owners, millionaire athletes, and headline-hungry politicians rip off taxpayers. And he offers somewhat useful policy prescriptions that might cut off the subsidy flow.

Making the Majors: The Transformation of Team Sports in AmericaBuy now.
by Eric M. Leifer, 1995.

coverTraces the growth and development of major leagues in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey, and predicts fundamental changes as the majors pursue international expansion. Examines the special concerns of league organizers in pursuing competitive balance, presents a detailed analysis of how large-city domination has been undermined in the modern era of Major League baseball, and shows how the fans affect the course of competition. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

The Market Structure of SportsBuy now.
by Gerald W. Scully, 1995.

coverThrough a detailed economic assessment of the current business of professional sports and prospects for the future in the United States, Scully examines the factors that determine players' salaries; management practices and franchise values; and long-term, short-term, and corporate ownership. Scully shows, for example, that while the economic growth of the last two decades was fueled primarily by sales of television rights, the broadcast market has become saturated and teams will have to look elsewhere for income in the 1990s. This book offers technical insights that will interest business economists and professionals in sports management.

Measuring the Economic Impact of Visitors to Buy now.
Sports Tournaments and Special Events
by John Crompton, 1999.

This publication provides information that will enable professionals to better understand how to do good economic impact studies, and how to correctly interpret results to their stakeholders. The publication discusses the role of measuring economic impacts in repositioning the field to enable agencies to acquire more resources; the principles of economic impact studies, common abuses of those principles, and the consequences of abuses; and discusses how to collect the data needed to calculate economic impact.

Minor League Baseball and Local Economic DevelopmentBuy now.
by Arthur T. Johnson, 1993.

When it comes to considering, funding and building minor league baseball stadiums, economic development agencies and local governments don't need to reinvent the wheel. This book outlines the experiences of other communities in relatively useful detail. Learn from their experiences and establish a workable platform from which to build your own approach to funding and building (or perhaps deciding not to build) a minor league park in your community.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association: A Study in Cartel BehaviorBuy now.
by Brian L. Goff et al., 1992.

This book examines the NCAA through the lens of antitrust economics. It shows that the NCAA fits a model of a cartel that maintains and abuses its power. Detailed analyses of NCAA decision making, punishment, monopsony, monopoly, revenues, growth and more are discussed.

Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team SportsBuy now.
by James Quirk, Rodney D. Fort, 1997.

coverQuirk demonstrates that decisions made in the executive offices of sports franchises can be as fascinating as, and can influence, what happens in the games. All Americans are involved in the sports business as ticket buyers, taxpayers, and participants in the culture that shapes and is shaped by professional sports. So there should be a wide readership for this intelligent guide to reading newspapers' sports pages, which increasingly resemble business pages.

Playing for Dollars: Labor Relations and the Sports BusinessBuy now.
by Paul D. Staudohar, 1996.

coverFans of professional sports have been forced to pay attention to labor relations in the last five years. The 1994-1995 season reminded baseball enthusiasts that a players' strike can mean something more than a swing and a miss, and the fans of other sports have experienced similar frustrations. In Playing for Dollars, Paul D. Staudohar analyzes the business dimension of sports with a timely assessment of the interactions among labor, management, and government in baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Staudohar describes the mechanics of contract and salary negotiations, including the pivotal issue of free agency. He explains how unions become established in sports, how the balance of power shifted between owners and players, and how the salaries of stars escalated. He investigates the gambling controversies and changing drug policies that have sometimes alienated fans and comments, as well, on the impact AIDS has had on professional sports. Staudohar takes a look at the effects of television contracts and international expansion. He also considers the future of team sports, discussing league expansion, prospects for growth, and the issue of franchise relocation.

Playing the Field: Why Sports Teams Move and
Cities Fight to Keep ThemBuy now.
by Charles C. Euchner, 1993.

Studies why sports attract a disproportionate amount of attention from cities, and what that says about the urban political process. Discusses why opponents of stadium projects have difficulty developing coalitions to oppose them and how, as a result, civic leaders succumb to the blackmail tactics of professional sports rather than developing and supporting sound economic policies. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Relocating Teams and Expanding Leagues in Professional Sports: Buy now.
How the Major Leagues Respond to Market Conditions
by Frank P. Jozsa, Jr. and John J. Guthrie, Jr., 1999.

coverFrank P. Jozsa, Jr. and John J. Guthrie, Jr. have written one of the most relevant books of its kind. "Relocating Teams and Expanding Leagues in Professional Sports" covers the subject of professional sports and how those sports react to market conditions in today's era of big money and demanding fans. From the relocation of the Brooklyn Dodgers all the way to the expansion Cleveland Browns this book is a must read for anyone involved in the decision making process which may involve the future of a professional sports franchise. As in any business, you can predict the future to some degree by understanding the forces which come into play by knowing what happened in the past. If you desire to truly understand how professional sports work, then this book is a must read for you.

SportometricsBuy now.
by Brian L. Goff (Editor), Robert D. Tollison (Editor), 1991.

Once studied by economists primarily to analyze antitrust implications of leagues or labor contracts with players, the sports world has now been identified by economists as a model of universal economic behavior. These economists have coined the term sportometrics to describe their two-way vision of sports as a reflection of the economic world and as a model for further study of economic behavior and principles. The essays are thus not merely the economics of sport--the profits and losses of various players, managers, owners, and spectators--but also explorations into the economic and mathematical relationships between athletes' success and their earnings, between the structure of high school athletic competition and the players' later careers in professional sports, and between the length of player contracts and the number of players on the disabled list, to name a few. With these essays, economists and industry specialists will be able to better understand both the dynamics of sports as an industry and the economic behavior of institutions and individuals in general.

Sports Economics: Current ResearchBuy now.
by John Fizel (Editor), Elizabeth Gustafson (Editor), Lawrence Hadley (Editor), 1999.
Includes:

  • The College Football Industry (R. Fort, J. Quirk).
  • A Test of the Optimal Positive Production Network Externality in Major League Baseball (D. Rascher).
  • Emerging Markets in Baseball: An Econometric Model for Predicting the Expansion Teams’ New Cities (T. Bruggink, J. Zamparelli).
  • Mega-Sports Events as Municipal Investments: A Critique of Impact Analysis (P. Porter).
  • Baseball and Basketball Stadium Ownership and Franchise Incentives to Relocate (G. Mildner, J. Strathman).
  • Alternative Econometric Models of Production In Major League Baseball (E. Gustafson, L. Hadley, J. Ruggiero).
  • Technological Change and Transition in the Winning Function for Major League Baseball (T. Bruggink)
  • Streak Management (R. Fort, R. Rosenman).
  • Trading Players In The National Basketball Association: For Better Or Worse? (D. Berri, S. Brook).
  • The Benefit of the Designated Hitter in Professional Baseball (C. Depken).
  • Participation in Collegiate Athletics and Academic Performance (J. Fizel, T. Smaby).
  • Did Collusion Adversely Affect Outcomes In The Baseball Player’s Labor Market?: A Panel Study Of Salary Determination From 1986 To 1992 (T. Hylan, M. Lage, M. Treglia).
  • Baseball’s New Collective Bargaining Agreement: How Will It Affect the National Pastime? (D. Marburger).
  • "These People Aren’t Very Big On Player Reps": Career Length, Mobility, And Union Activism in Major League Baseball (D. Coffin).
  • The Impact of the Salary Cap and Free Agency on the Structure and Distribution of Salaries in the NFL (S. Kowalewski, M. Leeds).

The Sports Franchise Game: Cities in Pursuit of Sports Buy now.
Franchises, Events, Stadiums, and Arenas
by Kenneth L. Shropshire, 1995.

Power, prestige, and millions of dollars--these are the stakes in the sports franchise game. Rigorous research, fascinating interviews with the major players, stories behind the headlines, and an insider's perspective converge in this rare view of the business side of professional sports. In its meticulous detail and informed analysis, The Sports Franchise Game provides a startling and memorable study of the business aspects of our national pastimes. The book will be of particular interest to policymakers, sports management professionals, and students of law and management.

Sports, Jobs, and Taxes: The Economic Impact ofBuy now.
Sports Teams and Stadiums
by Roger G. Noll (Editor), Andrew Zimbalist (Editor), 1997.

coverTo assess the case for team and stadium subsidies, this book examines the economic impact of new stadiums and the presence of a sports franchise on the local economy. It first explores such general issues as the appropriate method for measuring economic benefits and costs, the source of the bargaining power of teams in obtaining subsidies from local government, the local politics of attracting and retaining teams, the relationship between sports and local employment, and the importance of stadium design in influencing the economic impact of a facility. The second part of the book contains case studies of major league sports facilities in Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities, and of minor league stadiums and spring training facilities in baseball.

The Sports Stadium as a Municipal InvestmentBuy now.
by Dean V. Baim, Larry Sitsky, 1994.

coverThis unique book gives a measure of the direct financial costs and benefits to a city of constructing a sports stadium without injecting biases and values into the situation. The literature on the indirect economic impact of these projects is reviewed and discussed. Private and public stadium projects are compared with respect to construction costs, use, and amenities. The work has an introduction that deals with the justification of subsidies, a comparison of ownership plans of the facilities, and a review of the literature. Following this are 15 chapters dealing with individual stadium projects. A summary and analysis of financial and non-financial data are followed by a conclusion.

Stee-Rike Four!Buy now.
by Daniel R. Marburger (Editor), 1997.

coverWhen major league baseball cancelled its 1994 season following a player strike, fans were shocked that the national pastime could be brought to a standstill by a collective bargaining dispute. The strike was largely responsible for bringing the economics of the game into sports discussions and raising questions about the business of baseball. Will players' rising salaries destroy baseball? How will revenue-sharing and luxury taxes affect competitive balance? Should taxpayers subsidize their local team? This volume answers the basic questions about the economics of the sport, from salary arbitration to baseball's antitrust exemption, in a clear style geared for readers with no formal background in economics.

Swings and Misses: Moribund Labor Relations in Professional BaseballBuy now.
by Kenneth M. Jennings, 1997.

coverIn this follow-up to Balls and Strikes: The Money Game in Professional Baseball (Praeger, 1990), Jennings examines the state of professional baseball's labor relations during a nearly 25 year period, focusing on the background and the outcome of the 1994 baseball strike. Jennings concludes by suggesting lessons that can be learned to improve future labor relations in the sport.