The Sports Economist

Labels: coaching salaries, college sports

The economic development bill before the Senate today legalizes ticket scalping and says local governments cannot ban it. That's good news for St. Louis Cardinals lawyer Ron Waterman, who says Major League Baseball already has set up its own scalping outlet that would operate through the Cardinals website, giving fans a safe, secure way to buy and sell tickets--if ticket scalping is legalized in Missouri.

Mayor Greg Nickels says he'll force the Sonics to remain through the end of the lease in September 2010, despite owner Clay Bennett's stated desire to take the team to Oklahoma if he doesn't get a deal for a new arena in the next two months.

City Council members say they'll introduce legislation prohibiting any early buyout.

But can city officials really chain the Sonics to KeyArena for three more years?

As a general rule, tenants cannot be forced to stay until the end of a lease; landlords can merely collect monetary damages for breach of contract.

But the Sonics' lease contains language that could allow the city to reject an early buyout. The single paragraph, known as a "specific performance" clause, essentially says the city can require the Sonics to stay at KeyArena for the full term.

...If it comes down to a fight, the specific-performance clause in the Sonics' lease could give the city important legal leverage. While it would not permanently prevent a move, the clause could jack up a settlement price or even encourage a team sale.

"That's the silver bullet," said Fred Nance, a Cleveland attorney who used similar lease language to fight Browns owner Art Modell's efforts to move the NFL team to Baltimore in the mid-1990s.

Nance said the language in the Browns' lease allowed the city to get an injunction requiring the team to play the remaining three seasons on its lease at Cleveland Municipal Stadium. That prompted Modell and the NFL to negotiate a deal that eventually allowed the team to move to Baltimore but guaranteed Cleveland an expansion franchise that kept the Browns name.

Mizzou's game against the Fighting Illini that will be played in St. Louis this year is not the blockbuster ticket that some hoped for:

Matching the attendance numbers the Missouri-Illinois football game achieved in the 2002 and 2003 seasons is going to be difficult for the St. Louis Sports Commission.

Less than 50,000 tickets have been sold for the Sept. 1 game at the 66,000-seat Edward Jones Dome, which is off the pace of the 63,576 tickets that were sold in 2003 and the 61,876 in 2002.

"The upper 50 thousands would be a nice place to be this year," said Marc Schreiber, the commission's vice president of marketing and development. "The key for us is that this is sort of a long-term thing for us. We're not just looking at this year and what we do to say whether it's successful or not."

Still, the interest in the season opener is low considering that both schools are expected to be improved, and possibly bowl-caliber. That's in contrast to the 2002 season when neither team went to a bowl and the 2003 season when Mizzou went to the Independence Bowl. In 2003, despite both teams coming off 5-7 seasons and Illinois ultimately going 1-11, the series hit a high in attendance as far as games being played in St. Louis are concerned.

Jeff Gordon thinks fans are taking a wait and see approach to this game. I think there's something else going on. The game starts at 2:30 on Sept 1 and the Cards - a substitute product - play the Reds at 6:15 in St. Louis. With the Cards in the race for the divisional title and Rick Ankiel being the feel good story of the year that, at least for St. Louis, really needs one, that game will command much interest.

In 2002, the MU - IU game was played on Aug 31st. That evening the Cards played at the Cubs (the Cards swept them that weekend, those cads). Over 61,000 went to that game. In 2003 the Tigers played the Illini on August 30th. Over 63,000 fans went to that game. That night, the Cards played in Cincy.

So my guess is that Mizzou fans can blame the Cardinals for producing an intrguing substitute good that evening just down the road from the dome.

Labels: attendance, college football, illinois fighting illini, missouri tigers, St. Louis, substitute goods

The extraordinary frenzy of construction that surrounds the new Washington Nationals ballpark is a tribute to former mayor Tony Williams and those who believed that bringing baseball back to the District would be a smart move, even if taxpayers and fans are fronting $611 million to build the stadium.

But there is nothing automatic about sparking the economic development that stadium proponents cite as the justification for public investment in a ballpark.

I saw that this month on visits to Cleveland, Detroit and Cincinnati, where new downtown stadiums have done little to cure urban ills or inject street life into places that can be empty except right before and after a game.

Harrah's Entertainment, Inc. and AEG today unveiled plans for of an approximately 20,000-seat, privately financed, state-of-the-art arena. This arena is envisioned to be Las Vegas' new home for the most popular and important sports and entertainment events. The site of the venue will be one block east of the world famous Las Vegas Strip on approximately 10 acres of land that is part of the current Harrah's land holdings.

As managing partner, AEG will be responsible for developing, operating and programming a full range of live sports and entertainment events including concerts, boxing matches, special events and awards presentations, as well as sporting events, tournaments and exhibitions. The arena will be constructed and configured in a manner that will make it capable of housing an NBA or NHL franchise.

Labels: Las Vegas, stadium subsidies

What are the main results of the study?

There are three. First, umpires are more likely to call strikes for pitchers who share their race/ethnicity. The second result is an extension of the first: Umpires are more likely to express a preference for their own race/ethnicity only when their behavior is less closely scrutinized: 1) in parks where QuesTec (a computerized system set up to monitor and review an umpire’s ball and strike calls) is not installed, 2) in poorly attended games, and 3) on pitches where the umpire’s call cannot determine the outcome of the at-bat. Finally, game outcomes are influenced by the race/ethnicity match between starting pitchers and home-plate umpires. Home teams are more (less) likely to win a game when their starting pitcher and home plate umpire have the same (a different) race/ethnicity.

"I think we're going to have to take a look at our system. It's a slap in the face [to Japan] if we don't. And they won the World Baseball Classic, don't forget. "Their philosophy is, If you're a pitcher, you need to throw. It makes sense to me. We're training our pitchers to throw less. And nobody wants to try anything different. If [Matsuzaka] is this good, we might want to take a look at it."

Valentine ... admits that he too coddled pitchers in the majors, though it took understanding the Japanese throwing philosophy for him to see the error of that accepted practice. "The Japanese pitchers have superior mechanics," Valentine says. "They also have wonderful balance and core and foundation strength. They work the small muscle groups, and [Americans] work the large ones. The large ones make you look better. Valentine allows most of his starters to throw 200 bullpen pitches a day in the spring. "They have been doing it forever and have not broken down," he says. On the day before a starter takes the mound, he'll throw 90 pitches in the pen and, Valentine says, "have [his] best fastball in the ninth inning" the next day.

"He is a big league ace in the making. The question is, Does he throw his last pitch at 31 or at 39?"