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Tilting the Playing Field: Why a sports league planner would choose less, not more, competitive balance

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Author Info
Stefan Szymanski () (Tanaka Business School, Imperial College)

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Abstract

It has traditionally been argued that the organizer of a sports league would prefer more competitive balance to the level that emerges in a noncooperative equilibrium. This argument has been used to justify restraints on competition between teams, which also tend to raise profits at the expense of players and consumers. This paper shows that in theory a planner would prefer less, not more, competitive balance. The paper uses data from Major League Baseball to show just how unbalanced a league planner would choose.

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File URL: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/economics/RePEc/spe/Szymanski_Tilting.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function: Original version completed October 2004
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by International Association of Sports Economists in its series Working Papers with number 0620.

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Length: 37 pages
Date of creation: Oct 2006
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:spe:wpaper:0620

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Web page: http://www.cdes.fr/index.php?id=fr69
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Related research
Keywords: competitive balance; sports leagues; baseball;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
L25 - Industrial Organization - - Firm Objectives, Organization, and Behavior - - - Firm Performance
L41 - Industrial Organization - - Antitrust Issues and Policies - - - Monopolization; Horizontal Anticompetitive Practices
L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Recreation; Tourism

References listed on IDEAS
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  1. Stefan Szymanski, 2003. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(4), pages 1137-1187, December.
  2. Stefan Szymanski & Stefan KÈsenne, 2004. "Competitive balance and gate revenue sharing in team sports," Journal of Industrial Economics, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 52(1), pages 165-177, 03. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Stefan Szymanski, 2006. "Teaching competition in professional sports leagues," IASE Conference Papers 0647, International Association of Sports Economists. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Stefan Szymanski, 2006. "The Champions League and the Coase Theorem," Working Papers 0617, International Association of Sports Economists. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
Statistics
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