Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
Journal of Sports Economics
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Full Text (OnlineFirst PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Noll, R. G.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

The Economics of Baseball Contraction

Roger G. Noll

Stanford University

In the fall of 2001, Commissioner Bud Selig announced that two teams would be eliminated from Major League Baseball. After ensuing litigation and collective bargaining, contraction has been postponed until 2007 but remains a possibility. This article examines the economics of contraction of teams in a sports league, first developing the basic welfare economics of expansion and contraction and then investigating whether the private incentives of existing teams lead to inefficient contraction decisions. The core finding is that, using financial information from the 2001 season, all teams in Major League Baseball probably generate positive net social benefits, but the existing teams will benefit by approximately $1 billion from the elimination of the two weakest teams.

Key Words: baseball • contraction • sports • social benefits of teams

Journal of Sports Economics, Vol. 4, No. 4, 367-388 (2003)
DOI: 10.1177/1527002503257543
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?