IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/spe/wpaper/0602.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Teaching competition in professional sports leagues

Author

Listed:
  • 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

    Download full text from publisher

    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
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    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 Kesenne, 2000. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance in Professional Team Sports," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 1(1), pages 56-65, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Stefan Szymanski, 2004. "Professional Team Sports Are Only a Game," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(2), pages 111-126, May.
    6. 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.
    7. 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..
    8. 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.
    9. Stefan KÉsenne, 2004. "Competitive Balance and Revenue Sharing," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 5(2), pages 206-212, May.
    10. 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.
    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. 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.

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. 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.
    7. 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.
    8. 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, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 1-30, August.
    9. 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.
    10. Michel Cavagnac, 2009. "Revenue Sharing and Competitive Balance When Teams are not Wage Takers," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 35(3), pages 299-313, November.
    11. 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.
    12. Helmut Dietl & Egon Franck & Martin Grossmann & Markus Lang, 2009. "Contest Theory and its Applications in Sports," Working Papers 0105, University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU).
    13. William A. Hamlen Jr., 2007. "Deviations From Equity and Parity in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 8(6), pages 596-615, December.
    14. Marco Runkel, 2022. "Player Mobility and Competitive Balance Regulation in Professional Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(4), pages 479-500, May.
    15. Eberhard Feess & Frank Stähler, 2009. "Revenue Sharing In Professional Sports Leagues," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 56(2), pages 255-265, May.
    16. 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.
    17. Paul Madden, 2011. "Game Theoretic Analysis of Basic Team Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(4), pages 407-431, August.
    18. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Szymanski, Stefan & Wilkinson, Guy, 2016. "Testing the O-Ring theory using data from the English Premier League," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 468-481.
    20. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 2007. "Rational Expectations And Pro Sports Leagues," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 54(3), pages 374-387, July.

    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

    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:spe:wpaper:0602. 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: Victor Matheson (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/iaseeea.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.