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Teaching competition in professional sports leagues

Author

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  • Stefan Szymanski

    (Tanaka Business School, Imperial College)

Abstract

In recent years there has been some dispute over the appropriate way to model decision-making 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 a classroom to demonstrate how competition works in a noncooperative context. The supporting Excel spreadsheet used to conduct the game can be downloaded from the author’s personal webpage http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/people/s.szymanski.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Szymanski, 2006. "Teaching competition in professional sports leagues," Working Papers 0602, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
  • Handle: RePEc:spe:wpaper:0602
    as

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    File URL: http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/Szymanski_Teaching.pdf
    File Function: Paper presented at the Joint Annual Meeting 2006 of the International and German-Speaking Associations of Sports Economists (IASE and AK), May 4-6, 2006
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Scott E. Atkinson & Linda R. Stanley & John Tschirhart, 1988. "Revenue Sharing as an Incentive in an Agency Problem: An example from the National Football League," RAND Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 19(1), pages 27-43, Spring.
    2. Stefan Szymanski & Stefan Késenne, 2010. "Competitive Balance and Gate Revenue Sharing in Team Sports," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 7, pages 229-243, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Daniel R. Marburger, 1997. "Gate Revenue Sharing And Luxury Taxes In Professional Sports," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 15(2), pages 114-123, April.
    5. Stefan Kesenne, 2000. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(1), pages 56-65, February.
    6. Stefan KÉsenne, 2004. "Competitive Balance and Revenue Sharing," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(2), pages 206-212, May.
    7. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 1995. "Cross-subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 1265-1299, September.
    8. El-Hodiri, Mohamed & Quirk, James, 1971. "An Economic Model of a Professional Sports League," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(6), pages 1302-1319, Nov.-Dec..
    9. Stefan Szymanski, 2006. "Tilting the Playing Field: Why a sports league planner would choose less, not more, competitive balance," Working Papers 0620, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    10. Stefan Szymanski, 2004. "Professional Team Sports Are Only a Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(2), pages 111-126, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Cited by:

    1. Paul Madden, 2011. "Game Theoretic Analysis of Basic Team Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(4), pages 407-431, August.
    2. Paul Madden, 2015. "“Walrasian Fixed Supply Conjecture†Versus “Contest-Nash†Solutions to Sports League Models," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(5), pages 540-551, June.
    3. Paul Madden, 2017. "Comment on Driskill and Vrooman," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 271-281, April.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A20 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - General
    • D43 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Oligopoly and Other Forms of Market Imperfection
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

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