Amateurism Rules and Corruption in College Sports
I wrote a short article for the Washington Post’s “In Theory” blog and it was published today. Here is the link.
When I read manuscripts submitted to or published in economic journals, it is not uncommon for authors to report the standard deviation of binary dummy variables (dummies with values equal to 0 or 1). I’m interested in the TSE’s readership take on whether reporting these standard deviations is useful.
Call for Papers – Missouri Valley Economics Association Conference in Kansas City – Extended Deadline
Michael Davis and I are arranging North American Association of Sports Economists (NAASE) – affiliated sports economics sessions for the 2015 Missouri Valley Economic Association (MVEA) conference in Kansas City, Mo. this October. The conference runs from October 22nd through October 24th. and will be held at the Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza. The deadline for submitting papers has been extended to August 28th, 2015.
If you have a sports economics paper you would like to propose to present, please email me or Michael a title, a brief abstract, and full contact information including affiliation, email address, mailing address, and phone number. Michael’s email address is davismc@mst.edu and my email address is econphil64@yahoo.com .
Here’s a link to the general call for papers for more information about the conference.
Call for Papers – Missouri Valley Economics Association Conference
Michael Davis and I are arranging North American Association of Sports Economists (NAASE) – affiliated sports economics sessions for the 2015 Missouri Valley Economic Association (MVEA) conference in Kansas City, Mo. this October. The conference runs from October 22nd through October 24th. and will be held at the Kansas City Marriott Country Club Plaza.
Papers presented at the MVEA conference can be submitted to the MVEA’s peer-reviewed journal, The Journal of Economics, MVEA for $25, half off the normal submission fee. In addition, the MVEA gives a cash award for the Best Graduate Student Paper, so graduate students are encouraged to submit a paper proposal.
If you have a sports economics paper you would like to propose to present at this year’s MVEA conference, please email me or Michael a title, a brief abstract, and full contact information including affiliation, email address, mailing address, and phone number. The deadline for submissions is August 14th. Michael’s email address is davismc@mst.edu and my email address is econphil64@yahoo.com .
In January, Cubs fans were told this:
The Chicago Cubs and Tribune Broadcasting’s WGN-TV today announced a new 5-year agreement under which the local station will televise 45 games annually beginning with the 2015 season. This new agreement continues a broadcasting partnership that spans more than 60 years. Specific terms of the agreement were not released.
I get WGN via DirecTV and have been able to watch Cubs games on WGN in the past when they’ve been scheduled. However, that’s not the case this year. Today on WGN they are showing a movie called “Out of Sight” even though the Cubs vs. Reds game is scheduled to be on WGN.
Luckily, I have the MLB.TV package and can watch the game. It’s on right now and the WGNSports logo is on the scorebox that is shown throughout the game, but the game is not being shown on WGN on DirecTV at my location.
Do any readers know a reason why I (a person who lives in Minnesota) cannot receive the Cubs broadcasts on WGN via DirecTV. Are they only shown locally on WGN in Chicago?
Growing income inequality may be one of the most important economic issues of the next several decades. Despite a growing concentration of income and wealth, however, it seems that no one is willing to actually call themselves or anyone else rich.
Take this story about the magnificent Stephen Curry from EPSN’s Grantland, for example. Stephen, the son of NBA star Dell Curry, has his childhood described in this way,
…the house his parents built in 1996, the year Steph turned 8, on a 16-acre plot a few minutes’ drive from the center of Charlotte, North Carolina. It’s a big house, six bedrooms. Steph’s father, Dell, played shooting guard for the local NBA franchise, the Hornets, and a couple of years earlier he’d won the league’s sixth man of the year award; the Currys saw this as their dream home, designed it themselves, had cabinets flown in from Africa… still, it’s possible to imagine the Currys’ life there, the upper-middle-class childhoods resplendently sprawling over the place.
Upper-middle class? Seriously?
By the time Curry’s family built the house in 1996, Dell had already earned over $7 million from a basketball career that would eventually make him nearly $20 million in salary alone.
The median worker in the US earned $272,533 over the 14 years during which Stephen’s dad played in the NBA, or roughly 1/72nd of what Dell Curry earned.
Stephen had an extremely privileged childhood that 99.9% of kids can’t even dream of. Yes, he was, say it together, rich. This doesn’t take away from the fact that he used the advantages of his birth to become, perhaps, the best player in the NBA.
But Stephen Curry, upper-middle class kid? Please…
Tax Exemptions and Subsidies for Athletic Facilities Face Opposition in Minnesota
From my local paper (The Mankato Free Press):
In a setback for Mankato and North Mankato’s effort to extend their local sales taxes, a key legislator has stripped the regional athletic facility spending from the House version of the bill.
Rep. Steve Drazkowski, R-Mazeppa, said Tuesday his fellow Republicans wanted to stop the proliferation of sales tax-funded athletic facilities.
Cities such as Rochester, St. Cloud and Marshall have used sales taxes to build ice rinks, gyms and other athletic amenities.
Drazkowski, chair of the property tax and local government finance subcommittee, said Rochester’s use of the sales tax generated “outrage,” especially among visitors who came into the city to shop. He said cities end up “taxing neighbors to provide themselves a big athletic facility.”
In other related news in the state.
Dr. Bill McGuire, who owns the Minnesota United FC, said the group is seeking a property tax exemption and a sales tax break on construction materials for the new stadium near the MinneapolisFarmers Market. The new stadium would host about 20 professional games a year.
The ownership group would pay $30 million to buy the land, a $100 million franchise fee and $120 million to build the new, open-air stadium.
Despite the tax exemptions — which could amount to $3 million in the case of the sales taxes — McGuire characterized the deal as having “no public subsidy whatsoever.” The amount of deferred property taxes had not been estimated.
“No public subsidy whatsoever” may be technically true, but a property tax exemption and a sales tax break on construction materials would qualify as an implicit subsidy.
“Termination Risk and Agency Problems: Evidence from the NBA”
Here’s a link to new working paper by Alma Cohen, Nadav Levy, and Roy Sasson. Here is the abstract.
When agents face a risk of termination by the principal in the short term, they may under-invest in projects whose results would be realized only in the long term. We use data on decisions made by NBA coaches to study how risk of termination by the principal affects the behavior of agents. Because letting a rookie play produces long-term benefits on which coaches with a shorter investment horizon might place lower weight, we hypothesize that higher termination risk might lead to lower rookie participation. Consistent with this hypothesis, we find that, during the period of the NBA’s 1999 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and controlling for the characteristics of rookies and their teams, higher termination risk was associated with lower rookie participation and that this association was driven by important games. We also find that the association does not exist for second-year players and that the identified association disappeared when the 2005 CBA gave team owners stronger incentives to monitor the performance of rookies and preclude their underuse.
Thanks to Lucian Bebchuk for the pointer.
I think it’s well-known among our readers that the staff members of TSE aren’t big fans of “economic impact” studies… the a-priori kind, such as the one discussed in this LA Times article.
As plans for an NFL stadium in Carson move toward a vote this spring, supporters released a study Wednesday night detailing how the project could benefit the South Bay city.
Two NFL teams playing in a new stadium could generate more than half a billion dollars in spending, enough to support nearly 9,000 full- and part-time jobs once construction is completed, according to a study paid for by the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders .
Yesterday a book rep asked me why big-time sports aren’t boons to local economies. Today, a colleague asked me the same thing. My answer was basically as follows:
These sort of studies are routinely panned by many independent economists, who note most money spent at football games is local spending redirected from other forms of entertainment, be it a baseball game or a night at the movies.
Victor Matheson makes a guest appearance.
“An NFL franchise has very, very little net economic impact on L.A.’s economy,” said Victor Matheson, an economist who studies sports at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass.
Another thing I’d add is that my guess is that very few of the football players, coaches, training staff, etc. would live in Carson, Ca. meaning their incomes would “leave” the Carson area. So while there may be quite an injection of spending in Carson from having one or two football teams located there, there will also be quite a leakage as well.
The demand for cupcakes keeps increasing and, along with it, the payout from playing a road game at a major college football program. From the Columbia Daily Tribune:
In November, Missouri agreed to play two home games against Eastern Michigan, a Mid-American Conference school with a 6-30 record over the past three seasons. The Tigers will pay the Eagles $1.3 million to play at Faurot Field on Sept. 10, 2016, and $1.1 million for a game Sept. 26, 2020.
In February, the Tigers agreed to a $1.3 million home game against Idaho on Oct. 21, 2017. The Vandals play in the Sun Belt and have a 5-42 record over the past four seasons.
Both Eastern Michigan and Idaho will receive 400 complimentary tickets and the ability to purchase up to 1,500 more for their games.
Missouri will pay Southeast Missouri State $385,000 for a game Sept. 5 and $425,000 for one on Sept. 21, 2019. Missouri State, coached by former Tigers defensive coordinator Dave Steckel, will get $400,000 for coming to Memorial Stadium on Sept. 2, 2017.
It’s still good to be the cupcake, at least from a payout standpoint.
