IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rsd/wpaper/0044.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Evolutionarily Stable Strategies in Sports Contests

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Grossmann

    (Department of Business Administration, University of Zurich)

Abstract

In the recent years, many clubs in the biggest European soccer leagues have run into debts. The sports economic literature provides several explanation for this development, e.g., the league structure (open versus closed league), club constitutions, ruinous rat races between clubs. While the majority of the articles presume the well-known Nash equilibrium concept, I apply evolutionary game theory in a sports contest model. If clubs follow evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS), then ESS generate higher investments and lower profits than predicted by Nash strategies independent of win maximizing or profit maximizing clubs. Overdissipation of the rent is possible for Nash strategies as well as for ESS.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Grossmann, 2011. "Evolutionarily Stable Strategies in Sports Contests," Working Papers 0044, University of Zurich, Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA).
    • Handle: RePEc:rsd:wpaper:0044
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.business.uzh.ch/RePEc/rsd/CRSA_WPS/44_CRSA_full.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Markus Lang & Martin Grossmann & Philipp Theiler, 2011. "The Sugar Daddy Game: How Wealthy Investors Change Competition in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 167(4), pages 557-577, December.
    2. 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.
    3. Chung, Tai-Yeong, 1996. "Rent-Seeking Contest When the Prize Increases with Aggregate Efforts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 87(1-2), pages 55-66, April.
    4. Walter C. Neale, 1964. "The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 78(1), pages 1-14.
    5. Christian Riis & Derek J. Clark, 1997. "Contest success functions: an extension," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 11(1), pages 201-204.
    6. Schaffer, Mark E., 1989. "Are profit-maximisers the best survivors? : A Darwinian model of economic natural selection," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 29-45, August.
    7. Wolfgang Leininger, 2003. "On evolutionarily stable behavior in contests," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 4(3), pages 177-186, November.
    8. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 242-242.
    9. Helmut M. Dietl & Egon Franck & Markus Lang, 2008. "Overinvestment In Team Sports Leagues: A Contest Theory Model," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 55(3), pages 353-368, July.
    10. Stefan Késenne, 2006. "The Win Maximization Model Reconsidered," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(4), pages 416-427, November.
    11. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Stefan Szymanski, 2006. "Goal! Profit maximization and win maximization in football leagues," Working Papers 0621, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    12. Helmut M. Dietl & Martin Grossmann & Markus Lang, 2011. "Competitive Balance and Revenue Sharing in Sports Leagues With Utility-Maximizing Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(3), pages 284-308, June.
    13. Stergios Skaperdas, 1996. "Contest success functions (*)," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 7(2), pages 283-290.
    14. 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.
    15. Hehenkamp, B. & Leininger, W. & Possajennikov, A., 2004. "Evolutionary equilibrium in Tullock contests: spite and overdissipation," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 1045-1057, November.
    16. 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.
    17. Stefan Kesenne, 2000. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(1), pages 56-65, February.
    18. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & Stefan Szymanski, 2009. "Goal! Profit Maximization Versus Win Maximization in Soccer," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 34(1), pages 45-68, February.
    19. Martin Grossmann & Helmut M. Dietl, 2009. "Investment Behaviour in a Two-Period Contest Model," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 165(3), pages 401-417, September.
    20. Whitney, James D, 1993. "Bidding Till Bankrupt: Destructive Competition in Professional Team Sports," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(1), pages 100-115, January.
    21. Martin Grossmann & Helmut M. Dietl & Urs Trinkner, 2008. "The Effect of Marginal Cost Elasticity on Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(4), pages 339-350, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Marc Rohde & Christoph Breuer, 2016. "Europe’s Elite Football: Financial Growth, Sporting Success, Transfer Investment, and Private Majority Investors," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-20, June.
    2. Marc Rohde & Christoph Breuer, 2018. "Competing by investments or efficiency? Exploring financial and sporting efficiency of club ownership structures in European football," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 563-581, December.
    3. Aloys L. Prinz, 2019. "Indirect Evolution and Aggregate-Taking Behavior in a Football League: Utility Maximization, Profit Maximization, and Success," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-12, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Markus LANG & Alexander RATHKE & Marco RUNKEL, 2010. "The Economic Consequences Of Foreigner Rules In National Sports Leagues," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 31, pages 47-64.
    2. Helmut M. Dietl & Martin Grossmann & Markus Lang, 2011. "Competitive Balance and Revenue Sharing in Sports Leagues With Utility-Maximizing Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(3), pages 284-308, June.
    3. Helmut Dietl & Egon Franck & Martin Grossmann & Markus Lang, 2009. "Contest Theory and its Applications in Sports," Working Papers 0029, University of Zurich, Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA).
    4. Markus Lang & Martin Grossmann & Philipp Theiler, 2011. "The Sugar Daddy Game: How Wealthy Investors Change Competition in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 167(4), pages 557-577, December.
    5. Helmut M. Dietl & Markus Lang & Stephan Werner, 2009. "Social Welfare in Sports Leagues with Profit‐Maximizing and/or Win‐Maximizing Clubs," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 76(2), pages 375-396, October.
    6. Martin Grossmann & Helmut Dietl & Markus Lang, 2010. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in a Dynamic Contest Model," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 36(1), pages 17-36, February.
    7. Helmut Dietl & Egon Franck & Markus Lang & Alexander Rathke, 2010. "Organizational Differences between U.S. Major Leagues and European Leagues: Implications for Salary Caps," Working Papers 0035, University of Zurich, Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA).
    8. Dietl Helmut & Duschl Tobias & Franck Egon & Lang Markus, 2012. "A Contest Model of a Professional Sports League with Two-Sided Markets," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 232(3), pages 336-359, June.
    9. Helmut M. Dietl & Markus Lang & Alexander Rathke, 2011. "The Combined Effect Of Salary Restrictions And Revenue Sharing In Sports Leagues," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(2), pages 447-463, April.
    10. Dietl Helmut M & Duschl Tobias & Lang Markus, 2011. "Executive Pay Regulation: What Regulators, Shareholders, and Managers Can Learn from Major Sports Leagues," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 13(2), pages 1-32, August.
    11. Helmut Dietl & Rodney Fort & Markus Lang, 2011. "International Sports League Comparisons," Working Papers 0144, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU).
    12. Martin Grossmann & Andreas Hefti & Markus Lang, 2012. "Aggregative Contests and Ex-post Heterogeneity: the Case of the UEFA Champions League," Working Papers 0161, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU).
    13. Masaki Fujimoto, 2023. "A Dynamic Analysis of Equal Revenue Sharing and Endogenous Salary Caps in the N-Team Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(5), pages 624-638, June.
    14. Wladimir Andreff, 2009. "Équilibre compétitif et contrainte budgétaire dans une ligue de sport professionnel," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 60(3), pages 591-633.
    15. Helmut M. Dietl & Markus Lang, 2008. "The Effect Of Gate Revenue Sharing On Social Welfare," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(3), pages 448-459, July.
    16. Marc Rohde & Christoph Breuer, 2018. "Competing by investments or efficiency? Exploring financial and sporting efficiency of club ownership structures in European football," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(5), pages 563-581, December.
    17. Aloys L. Prinz, 2019. "Indirect Evolution and Aggregate-Taking Behavior in a Football League: Utility Maximization, Profit Maximization, and Success," Games, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-12, May.
    18. Aloys Prinz & Stefan Thiem, 2021. "Value‐maximizing football clubs," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(5), pages 605-622, November.
    19. Oliver Gürtler & Markus Lang & Tim Pawlowski, 2015. "On the Release of Players to National Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(7), pages 695-713, October.
    20. Dietl Helmut M & Lang Markus & Rathke Alexander, 2009. "The Effect of Salary Caps in Professional Team Sports on Social Welfare," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-23, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contest; evolutionary stable strategies; utility maximization; team sports league;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C72 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Noncooperative Games
    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • D74 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Conflict; Conflict Resolution; Alliances; Revolutions
    • L13 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - Oligopoly and Other Imperfect Markets
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:rsd:wpaper:0044. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: IBW IT Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/isuzhch.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.