The classical Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis (UOH) informs economists' understanding consumer decisions to attend sporting events and models of team revenue generation. Coates, Humphreys and Zhou (2014) developed a reference dependent preference based consumer choice model under uncertainty...

The predictions that emerge from tournament theory have been tested in a number of sports-related settings. Since sporting events involving individuals (golf, tennis, running, auto racing) feature rank order tournaments with relatively large payoffs and easily observable outcomes, sports is a...

Many economists view the NCAA as a cartel in the market for college athletes. Financially, this cartel allows NCAA members to attract and retain college athletes for the price of a “grant-in-aid” without competitively bidding for the labor services of student-athletes, greatly reducing...

Gambling on sports is a big business, and in North America it has evolved during the past few decades from a shady, quasi-legal activity to a widely accepted recreational activity. As with any big business, gambling on sports has a number of important financial and economic implications. This...

Professional sports teams in North America are privately held corporations. Consequently, they are not required to make audited financial statements publicly available. We use a hedonic price model to analyze transaction prices for professional sports teams from 1969 to 2006. Results indicate...

We investigate self-monitoring and enforcement of the NCAA player recruitment agreement in the context of a cartel model with incomplete information and reaction lags. Empirical results from a panel probit model strongly support the predictions of the model. Lagged winning percentage, the...

I investigate the relationship between big-time college football programs and state appropriations to public institutions of higher education. Estimation of a linear reduced form model of the determination of state appropriations to higher education, using a panel of financial, athletic, and...

Do big-time college sports affect state appropriations to public colleges and universities? Little attention has been given to the possibility that big-time athletic programs generate economic benefits for a university at the state capital. The paper estimates a reduced form model of the...

Organizing employees into teams increases productivity but also generates incentives to shirk. Recent research suggests that peer enforcement plays an important role in deterring shirking in teams. We analyze 10 years of performance and compensation data for NFL offensive linemen, a high-skill,...

Professional sports teams receive large subsidies, some in excess of $500 million, from local governments for the construction of new facilities. These subsidies cannot be explained by tangible economic benefits, and estimates of the value of intangible benefits also fall short of typical...