IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/25832.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Test of the Optimal Positive Production Network Externality in Major League Baseball

Author

Listed:
  • Daniel, Rascher

Abstract

Unlike most businesses, firms in a sports league need viable competitors. While a certain amount of domination is optimal, from an individual owners perspective, too much will result in league dissolution, and thus a lower utility for every owner. Hence, there is a limited positive production network externality. This paper examines the optimal level of the externality in professional baseball using data from each game of the 1996 MLB season. Both absolute and relative quality are important determinants of the demand for sports contests. In fact, fans prefer a game in which two high quality teams are competing, but the home team has approximately twice as good of a chance as the visiting team of winning.

Suggested Citation

  • Daniel, Rascher, 1999. "A Test of the Optimal Positive Production Network Externality in Major League Baseball," MPRA Paper 25832, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25832
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/25832/1/MPRA_paper_25832.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jennett, Nicholas I, 1984. "Attendances, Uncertainty of Outcome and Policy in Scottish League Football," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 31(2), pages 176-198, June.
    2. 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.
    3. Peel, David A & Thomas, Dennis A, 1988. "Outcome Uncertainty and the Demand for Football: An Analysis of Match Attendances in the English Football League," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 35(3), pages 242-249, August.
    4. Bruce R. Domazlicky & Peter M. Kerr, 1990. "Baseball Attendance and the Designated Hitter," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 34(1), pages 62-68, March.
    5. Hoang, Ha & Rascher, Dan, 1999. "The NBA, Exit Discrimination, and Career Earnings," MPRA Paper 3542, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. J. Cairns & N. Jennett & P.J. Sloane, 1986. "The Economics of Professional Team Sports: A Survey of Theory and Evidence," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 13(1), pages 3-80, January.
    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. Robert J. Lemke & Matthew Leonard & Kelebogile Tlhokwane, 2010. "Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 316-348, June.
    2. Jeffery Borland, 2003. "Demand for Sport," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 478-502, Winter.
    3. Kelly Goossens, 2006. "Competitive balance in european football: comparison by adapting measures: national measure of seasonal imbalance and Top 3," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 2(2), pages 77-122, Dicembre.
    4. 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.
    5. Dorian Owen, 2014. "Measurement of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 3, pages 41-59, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Raul Caruso & Francesco Addesa & Marco Di Domizio, 2019. "The Determinants of the TV Demand for Soccer: Empirical Evidence on Italian Serie A for the Period 2008-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 25-49, January.
    7. Marc Dubois, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Post-Print hal-04692979, HAL.
    8. David J. Berri & Martin B. Schmidt & Stacey L. Brook, 2004. "Stars at the Gate," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(1), pages 33-50, February.
    9. Marco Di Domizio & Raul Caruso, 2015. "Hooliganism and Demand for Football in Italy: Attendance and Counterviolence Policy Evaluation," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 16(2), pages 123-137, May.
    10. Nicholas King & P. Dorian Owen & Rick Audas, 2012. "Playoff Uncertainty, Match Uncertainty and Attendance at Australian National Rugby League Matches," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(281), pages 262-277, June.
    11. Sznajder, Andrzej, 2010. "Charakterystyka rynku sportu profesjonalnego," Gospodarka Narodowa-The Polish Journal of Economics, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie / SGH Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 2010(10), October.
    12. 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.
    13. Andrew Zimbalist, 2003. "Sport as Business," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 503-511, Winter.
    14. Jason P. Berkowitz & Craig A. Depken II & Dennis P. Wilson, 2011. "When Going in Circles is Going Backward: Outcome Uncertainty in NASCAR," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(3), pages 253-283, June.
    15. Sznajder, Andrzej, 2007. "Charakterystyka rynku sportu profesjonalnego," Gospodarka Narodowa-The Polish Journal of Economics, Szkoła Główna Handlowa w Warszawie / SGH Warsaw School of Economics, vol. 2007(10), October.
    16. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & J. James Reade, 2023. "The Impact of Uncertainty on Fan Interest Surrounding Multiple Outcomes in Open European Football Leagues," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-02, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    17. Mark Baimbridge & Samuel Cameron & Peter Dawson, 1995. "Satellite broadcasting and match attendance: the case of rugby league," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 2(10), pages 343-346.
    18. Stefan Kesenne, 2000. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(1), pages 56-65, February.
    19. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2017. "Game Outcome Uncertainty and the Demand for International Football Games: Evidence From the German TV Market," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 31-45, January.
    20. Trung Minh Dang & Ross Booth & Robert Brooks & Adi Schnytzer, 2015. "Do TV Viewers Value Uncertainty of Outcome? Evidence from the Australian Football League," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 91(295), pages 523-535, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    uncertainty of outcome; censored regression; cluster correlation; demand; baseball; network externality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • 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:pra:mprapa:25832. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.