The article proposes a new ‘‘strategic market game’’ (SMG) approach to modeling strategic interactions between clubs in professional team sports leagues, and generalizes a basic framework used in previous literature (two clubs, fixed talent supply and club revenues that depend only on relative team qualities), to allow variable talent supply and club revenues that depend on absolute (and relative) team qualities. The new approach incorporates club talent market power (duopsony), overlooked by existing approaches; in both the basic and the more general framework, Nash equilibrium competitive balance is analyzed, with and without revenue sharing and with comparisons to existing analyses.
With European soccer leagues in mind, a novel model of club owner objectives nests standard profit (and win) maximization, but adds benefactor behavior where owners inject personal funds to increase their team's quality. A ''generosity'' parameter differentiates owners; parameter value zero equates to profit maximizers, with benefactors emerging at sufficiently positive values. The model is used to investigate consequences of Union of European Football Associations' (UEFA) ''Financial Fair Play'' regulations (FFP) for the league, aimed to preclude benefactor injections. Assuming (post-Bosman) a relatively large elasticity of talent supply to the league, FFP is a poor regulatory device, creating welfare losses for fans, owners, and players.
Motivated by aspects of European soccer club governance (members' clubs supporters' trusts), a first formal analysis of fan welfare maximization as a club objective in a sports league is provided, with comparisons to objectives studied previously (profit and win maximization). Positive comparisons focus on team qualities, ticket prices, attendances and the impact of capacity crowds; empirically observed ticket black markets and inelastic pricing are consistent only with fan welfare maximization. Normatively, social welfare (aggregate league surplus) is wellserved by a league of fan welfare maximizers, or sometimes win maximizers, but not profit maximizers; leagues should not normally make profits.
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AbstractMotivated by increasing supporter involvement in club governance in English football, the paper presents a simple model of a sports league in which club objectives are utility functions defined over profits, win percentages and fan (=supporter) welfare, formalising a seminal suggestion of Sloane (1971). Consequences of increased utility weight on fan welfare (capturing increased supporter involvement in governance) are unambiguously higher attendances, with more nuanced affects on ticket prices and player expenditure. The attendance affect is consistent with some limited, anecdotal data currently available from clubs with existing supporter boardroom representation. Normatively, positive profits for club owners indicate social sub-optimality.
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JEL Classification L10, L83How to quote or cite this document Consequences of increased utility weight on fan welfare (capturing increased supporter involvement in governance) are unambiguously higher attendances, with more nuanced affects on ticket prices and player expenditure. The attendance affect is consistent with some limited, anecdotal data currently available from clubs with existing supporter boardroom representation. Normatively, positive profits for club owners indicate social sub-optimality.
JEL classification numbers: L10, L83
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