IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hce/wpaper/069.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Consumer and employer discrimination in professional sports markets – New evidence from Major League Baseball

Author

Listed:
  • Wolfgang Maennig

    (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg)

  • Steffen Q. Mueller

    (Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg)

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between consumer discrimination, racial matching strategies, and employer discrimination in Major League Baseball (MLB) from 1985 to 2016. To this end, we assess the extent to which both fan attendance and team performance respond to changes in teams’ and their local market areas’ racial compositions. We innovate by using a significantly enhanced data basis with individual player data that we derive from combining web scraping and using facial recognition techniques to identify player race and using County-level Census data instead of Metropolitan Statistical Area data. We find that fans in both MLB Leagues developed a taste for racial diversity in the late 1980s; since the 2000s, discrimination starts to increase again. However, this discrimination is not fully rationalizing the performance gap across athletes of different race and ethnicity; employer discrimination is not primarily driven by fans’ racial preferences.

Suggested Citation

  • Wolfgang Maennig & Steffen Q. Mueller, 2021. "Consumer and employer discrimination in professional sports markets – New evidence from Major League Baseball," Working Papers 069, Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg.
    • Handle: RePEc:hce:wpaper:069
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hced.uni-hamburg.de/WorkingPapers/HCED-069.pdf
    File Function: First Version, 2021
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Football spectator no-show behaviour in the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(45), pages 4882-4901, September.
    2. Mark Foley & Fred Smith, 2007. "Consumer discrimination in professional sports: new evidence from major league baseball," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(13), pages 951-955.
    3. Richard C. K. Burdekin & Richard T. Hossfeld & Janet Kiholm Smith, 2005. "Are NBA Fans Becoming Indifferent to Race? Evidence From the 1990s," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(2), pages 144-159, May.
    4. Scott Tainsky & Jason A. Winfree, 2010. "Discrimination and Demand: The Effect of International Players on Attendance in Major League Baseball," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(1), pages 117-128, March.
    5. Gwartney, James & Haworth, Charles, 1974. "Employer Costs and Discrimination: The Case of Baseball," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(4), pages 873-881, July/Aug..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Jye-Shyan Wang & Wen-Jhan Jane & Yu-Hung Cheng & Pei-Hsin Fang, 2021. "Does fan discrimination exist? Mixed-method investigation of customer discrimination in Chinese professional baseball league," Eurasian Business Review, Springer;Eurasia Business and Economics Society, vol. 11(3), pages 477-496, September.
    2. Scott Tainsky & Jason A. Winfree, 2010. "Discrimination and Demand: The Effect of International Players on Attendance in Major League Baseball," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 91(1), pages 117-128, March.
    3. Kahn, Lawrence M., 2009. "The Economics of Discrimination: Evidence from Basketball," IZA Discussion Papers 3987, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Roberto Pedace, 2008. "Earnings, Performance, and Nationality Discrimination in a Highly Competitive Labor Market as An Analysis of the English Professional Soccer League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(2), pages 115-140, April.
    5. Mauro Caselli & Paolo Falco & Babak Somekh, 2024. "Inside the NBA Bubble: how Black players performed better without fans," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 37(2), pages 1-20, June.
    6. Mark Foley & Fred Smith, 2007. "Consumer discrimination in professional sports: new evidence from major league baseball," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 14(13), pages 951-955.
    7. John Goddard & John O. S. Wilson, 2009. "Racial discrimination in English professional football: evidence from an empirical analysis of players' career progression," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 33(2), pages 295-316, March.
    8. Joseph Price & Justin Wolfers, 2010. "Racial Discrimination Among NBA Referees," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 125(4), pages 1859-1887.
    9. Lenten, Liam J.A. & Geerling, Wayne & Kónya, László, 2012. "A hedonic model of player wage determination from the Indian Premier League auction: Further evidence," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 60-71.
    10. Torbern Anderson & Sumner J. La Croix, 1989. "Minority Pitchers in Major League Baseball: Is There Discrimination by Fans?," Working Papers 198913, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    11. repec:lan:wpaper:3964 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Klaassen, F.J.G.M. & Magnus, J.R., 2006. "Are Economic Agents Successful Optimizers? An Analysis Through Strategy in Tennis," Other publications TiSEM 73e12d86-8fe4-4a87-9181-7, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    13. repec:ebl:ecbull:v:4:y:2007:i:34:p:1-7 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. B. Jay Coleman & J. Michael DuMond & Allen K. Lynch, 2008. "An Examination of NBA MVP Voting Behavior," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 9(6), pages 606-627, December.
    15. Liam J A Lenten & Wayne Geerling & László Kónya, 2010. "A Hedonic Model of Player Wage Determination from the Indian Premier League Auction#," Working Papers 2010.04, School of Economics, La Trobe University.
    16. Rodney Paul & Andrew Weinbach & Justin Mattingly, 2018. "Tests of Racial Discrimination in a Simple Financial Market: Managers in Major League Baseball," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-10, March.
    17. R. Todd Jewell & Robert Brown & Scott Miles, 2002. "Measuring discrimination in major league baseball: evidence from the baseball hall of fame," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 167-177.
    18. Olugbenga Ajilore, 2014. "Do white NBA players suffer from reverse discrimination?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(1), pages 558-566.
    19. Dex S., 1992. "Costs of discriminating against migrant workers : an international review," ILO Working Papers 992869403402676, International Labour Organization.
    20. Rosen, Sherwin & Sanderson, Allen, 2001. "Labour Markets in Professional Sports," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 111(469), pages 47-68, February.
    21. David Branham, 2008. "Taking Advantage of an Untapped Pool: Assessing the Success of African American Head Coaches in the National Football League," The Review of Black Political Economy, Springer;National Economic Association, vol. 35(4), pages 129-146, December.
    22. Liam J. A. Lenten, 2017. "Racial discrimination in umpire voting: an (arguably) unexpected result," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 49(37), pages 3751-3757, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumer preferences; Discrimination; Race; Ethnicity; Facial recognition; Ticket sales;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling
    • J1 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics
    • Z2 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:hce:wpaper:069. 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: Wolfgang Maennig (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ihhamde.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.