This book lays down a marker as to the state of economists’ understanding of the National Football League (NFL) by assembling sophisticated, critical surveys of by leading sports economists on major topics associated with the league. The book is divided into four parts. The first three chapters in Part I provide an overview of the business of the NFL from an economist’s perspective. Part II is a collection of surveys of the economics of the NFL’s most important revenue streams, including media, attendance, and merchandising. The NFL’s labor economics is the focus of Part III, with chapters on player and coach labor markets, the draft, and contract structure. Part IV includes essays on competitive balance, gambling, economic impacts of the Super Bowl, behavioral economic issues associated with the league, and antitrust issues. This book will appeal to sports economists, sports management professionals, and policy-makers, and would be useful as a supplementary text for sports economics and management courses as well as a reference text.

This book lays down a marker as to the state of economists’ understanding of the National Football League (NFL) by assembling sophisticated, critical surveys of by leading sports economists on major topics associated with the league. The book is divided into four parts. The first three chapters in Part I provide an overview of the business of the NFL from an economist’s perspective. Part II is a collection of surveys of the economics of the NFL’s most important revenue streams, including media, attendance, and merchandising. The NFL’s labor economics is the focus of Part III, with chapters on player and coach labor markets, the draft, and contract structure. Part IV includes essays on competitive balance, gambling, economic impacts of the Super Bowl, behavioral economic issues associated with the league, and antitrust issues. This book will appeal to sports economists, sports management professionals, and policy-makers, and would be useful as a supplementary text for sports economics and management courses as well as a reference text.

Stephen Shmanske and Leo Kahane have brought together nearly all of the important authors in the quickly growing field of Sports Economics to contribute chapters to this two-volume set. The result is truly informative in its content and path breaking in its importance to the field. Anyone contemplating research in the field of sports economics will find the works in these volumes to provide both ample background in subject after subject and numerous suggestions for future avenues of research. The editors have recognized two ways that economics and sports interact. First, economic analysis has helped everyone understand many of the peculiar institutions in sports. And second, quality data about individual productivity, salaries, career histories, teamwork, and managerial behavior has helped economists study topics as varied as the economics of discrimination, salary dispersion, and antitrust policy. These two themes of economics helping sports and sports helping economics provide the organizational structure to the two-volume set. The reader will find that sports economists employ or comment on practically every field in economics. Labor Economics comes into play in the areas of salary formation, salary dispersion, and discrimination. Baseballs history and the NCAA are studied with Industrial Organization and Antitrust. Public Finance and Contingent Value Modeling come into play in the study of stadium finance and franchise location. The Efficient Market Hypothesis is examined with data from gambling markets. Macroeconomic effects are studied with data from mega events like the Super Bowl, The World Cup, and the Olympics. The limits of Econometrics are pushed and illustrated with superb data in many of the papers herein. Topics in Applied microeconomics like demand estimation and price discrimination are also covered in several of the included papers. Game Theory, measurement of production functions, and measurement of managerial efficiency all come into play. Talented authors in each of these fields have made contributions to these volumes. The volumes are also rich from the point of view of the sports fan. Every major team sport is covered, and many interesting comparisons can be made especially between the North American League organization and the European-style promotion and relegation leagues. Golf, NASCAR, College athletics, Womens sports, the Olympics, and even bowling are represented in these pages. There is literally something for everyone.

Journal of the National Sports Law Institute.

The Economics of Sports is the first textbook written for this course and is eagerly awaited by professors, department chairs, and students alike. Until now, professors have patched together chapters from economics texts and trade books about sports, leaving the students without the instructional guide they need and without a central economics focus. In this new comprehensive text, Michael Leeds and Peter von Allmen introduce the essential core economic concepts and then develop them with examples and applications from the sports industry. Three of the four sections are devoted to illustrating prominent areas of economics: industrial organization, public finance, and labor economics. The final section provides insights into theories related to the not-for-profit sector of the economy like the theory of bureaucracy. The Economics of Sports assumes only a basic, one-semester understanding in microeconomics and the rigor and level of depth have been designed for undergraduates, making it a perfect fit for sports economics courses and as a supplement to principles-level courses. * First true textbook on the economics of sports to hit the market! * Accessible to both majors and non-majo