What economic rules govern sports? How does the sports business differ from other businesses? Playbooks and Checkbooks takes a fascinating step-by-step look at the fundamental economic relationships shaping modern sports. Focusing on the ways that the sports business does and does not overlap...

type="main" xml:id="sjpe12065-abs-0001" <title type="main">Abstract</title> <p>In the US, most economists argue that professional sports teams are profit-maximising businesses, but it is a widely held view in Europe that professional football clubs are not run on a profit-maximising basis. This belief has important...</p>

The English (Association) Football League is a long established industrial cartel selling a highly popular product with only imperfect substitutes. Despite that, the majority of its member clubs lose money and the industry has faced successive financial crises over the last decade. This paper...

The link between team payroll and competitive balance plays a central role in the theory of team sports but is seldom investigated empirically. This paper uses data on team payrolls in Major League Baseball between 1980 and 2000 to examine the link and implements Granger causality tests to...