Ice Hockey Success in the Sun Belt

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by John Miller about a story he was writing on the Phoenix Coyotes. As readers of EZDzine are well aware, evidence that sports franchises and stadium and arena construction generate large impetus to economic growth and urban development exists only in the minds and reports of consultants to sport franchises and their rent-seeking employers. Subsidies for such activities is especially troubling when city and state budgets are in disarray with service reductions and layoffs of public employees from teachers to police and firefighters. Miller's story, Taxpayers take the puck, describes […]

"Looking at the Monopsony in the Mirror"

Although still a distant second to monopoly, buyer power and monopsony are hot topics in the antitrust community. Despite the increasing interest in monopsony and buyer power, relatively few cases have actually been brought. Given the relatively few antitrust cases, the legal standards for monopsony claims are less developed than for monopoly claims. In recent years, courts, competition agencies, and scholars in addressing monopsony begin with a simple premise: monopsony is the mirror image of monopoly. But as this Article contends, courts and agencies should be careful when importing monopolization standards for monopsony cases. What works for monopolization claims may […]

Is an exit fee a barrier to entry?

The big news out of the ACC is that Noitre Dame has been unanimously voted in as a member of the conference... in every sport but football (of course) and hockey.  The not-so-big news in the grand scheme of things is that the ACC voted 10-2 to increase its exit fee from $20 million to more than 2.5 times that amount: $50 million. One of those two naysayers was Maryland's president Wallace Loh.  Loh voted against the increased exit fee because it could be seen as a barrier to entry by some who may otherwise want to join the ACC […]

Organizational Architecture of College Sports Behind the Scandals

Another college coach engages in reprehensible activities and the supervising athletic directors and university presidents do nothing until external investigations and public awareness force their hand.    While not involving incidents nearly as disturbing, the bumbling of the Rutgers situation echoes of many of the same issues as the Penn State scandal.  Some writers have pondered how Rutgers’ Athletic Director and President could have fallen down the same hole with the PSU scandal so fresh.  The head scratching takes a very narrow view.  The problem is, fundamentally, not one of university officials who are unaware or without ethical standards (although one […]

Spring Training

The Sports Business Journal recently published "Clubs give winter homes a branding boost" about the partnership between MLB franchises and their spring training homes. There is a box with Cactus League and Grapefruit League in it that has links to charts showing "What ... municipalities have gained from, and spent on, spring training sites, according to their leases." Among these pieces of information are the debt service and the net cost to the municipality to operate the facility in 2011. The article points out that since 1988 19 of the 30 clubs in MLB have gotten new spring training venues […]

A Response to bobby and Phil

My colleague Phil recently highlighted a comment by bobby, one of our many great readers. Bobby is concerned that we here at TSE tend to focus on employment, income, or tax collections as a measure of welfare associated with sports rather than the sum of producer and consumer surplus. Bobby's concern is well-founded, but let me take a moment to explain why we so often talk in terms of these other measures. First, those of us who talk employment or income are generally responding directly to claims made by sports boosters rather than making estimates while starting with a blank slate. When […]

If You Oppose Stadium Subsidies, then You Might Be a Deadbeat

Have you ever wondered about the demographics of people who oppose stadium subsidies?  Me neither, but here's something from Savethevikes.org, a stadium proponent website. As with any public hearing we do expect to hear from opposition on a Vikings stadium and given the time slot, the advantage goes to opponents. We typically see those who are unemployed or on a fixed income advocating against a new stadium because the government isn’t giving them enough. All while the majority of the Vikings 2.5 million fans are working. Well, at least the author didn't refer to us pencil-necked, pointy-headed professors - employed […]

"The Economic Impact of Cardinals Postseason on St. Louis is Unclear"

I'll admit right out of the box that I was excited, as only a sports economist can be, when I read the headline to this post which is the headline to this St. Louis Post-Dispatch article written by Matthew Hathaway (link via Chad Venable).  Matthew gets right to the chase:  spending on Cardinal games is not necessarily an inflow of money into an economy.  At least a portion of it would have been spent elsewhere in the city. A long Cardinals run of postseason baseball is good for business, right? The local chamber of commerce predicts it will pump millions of […]

ezdzine.com: Making a difference

Most likely in repsonse to recent articles on the thesporteconomist.com critical of the NCAA's policies towards payment of college players, the NCAA, after great debate, has agreed to increase the allowable compensation that schools can make to student athletes. The passage of the game-changing Proposal 2011-78 now allows student athletes unlimted access to fruit, nuts, bagels and bagel spreads including, but not limited to, butter, jelly, and cream cheese. Previously, the NCAA made no provision for access to adequate bagel condiments. While college athletes used to work for peanuts, their situation has now significantly improved - they now work for peanuts and […]

Clippers -- Lessons from Losers

Recently, on the NBA Network I caught the tail end of a conversation between Kenny Smith and another announcer about the LA Clippers.  Maybe there are less successful franchises by some metric, but the Clippers must be in the mix in any discussion of trees that never bear fruit (see Pro Basketball Reference).   If this season's trend continues, the Clips will record 1 winning season in the last 14 and 2 out of the last 18.  In half of these seasons, they have won less than one-third of their games. Long losing streaks (for example WKU football) or extremely […]

Announcing the New Quebec City Arena...

Big news out of Quebec today.  The Province of Quebec and the Quebec City government announced formal plans to build a new arena in Quebec City.  The new facility will be 100% publicly financed, with the province and the city each picking up half of the cost.  The plan is to build the arena in hopes of attracting an NHL franchise back to Quebec City, which has been without a franchise since the Nordiques left for Colorado in 1995. Kids, don't try this at home.  Building an arena before you have a major league tenant under contract is not for […]

NFL Even MORE Competitively Balanced than We Thought

With the NFL regular season having reached its (customarily gripping) climax moments ago, sports economists will take note, as usual, of the within-season competitive balance measures, based on the end-of-season standings.  The figures generated from these measures are often used in the literature on the effectiveness (or otherwise) of labor market and revenue-sharing policies used by leagues to maintain/improve competitive balance.  On the basis of these measures, it is generally accepted by sports economists that the NFL has been the most competitively balanced (on average) of the four major leagues over the last few decades.  However, there is continued debate […]