Economists have offered a plethora of studies examining various aspects of professional team sports. Such studies, though, often neglect the playoffs. Given the impact the post-season has on league revenue, as well as the utility generated for both participants and observers of professional...

Examinations of racial discrimination hinge upon the ability of the researcher to accurately measure worker productivity. To overcome this difficulty, researchers have utilized data from professional sports. Unlike many industries, professional sports provide an abundance of performance measures...

In this paper,we consider whether underpaying players restricted by the reserve clause is a common practice in the three largest sports leagues in North America—the NFL, NBA, and MLB. Our results are consistent with the hypothesis that owners of professional sports teams do exercise monopsony...

Despite the common perception that African-American coaches face discrimination obstacles, only two rigorous statistical studies exist that actually address the issue of racial variation in retention of coaches. Neither study accounts for variation in the level of talent across coaches and the...

Kickers in the NFL have two jobs. The first is kicking off. The second is scoring via field goal attempts and extra points. Of these two actions, the latter’s impact on outcomes is most easily observed. Decision-makers should be able to go beyond simple visual observation and evaluate actions...

The role of the manager in promoting production is a little-understood phenomenon. In particular, it is difficult to separate managers’ contributions from the abilities of the workers they supervise. Firms may therefore mistakenly attribute the contributions of the workers to the managers who...

Professional sports are characterized by an abundance of information on worker productivity and severe consequences for failure. Consequently, one would expect information to be processed efficiently in this industry. Recent research indicates, though, that decision makers in professional sports...

The NBA and its players union reached a new collective bargaining agreement in 2011. As a result of this agreement, the players will now be receiving less money. The NBA argued that a pay cut for the players was necessary to make the league better. More specifically, the NBA argued that if the...