IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/revind/v52y2018i2d10.1007_s11151-017-9606-8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Mills

    (University of Florida)

  • Jason Winfree

    (University of Idaho)

Abstract

In this paper we analyze the argument—which has been used by both the National Labor Relations Board and the National Collegiate Athletic Association—that unionization and/or player pay will hurt competitive balance in college sports. We present a theoretical analysis of universities that recruit athletes and examine the assumptions that are needed for player compensation to decrease competitive balance. We also empirically illustrate the differences in balance between professional and college sports. Given the theoretical and empirical analysis, we argue that unionization and/or player pay is unlikely to hurt competitive balance.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Mills & Jason Winfree, 2018. "Athlete Pay and Competitive Balance in College Athletics," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 211-229, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:52:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11151-017-9606-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s11151-017-9606-8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11151-017-9606-8
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11151-017-9606-8?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel Sutter & Stephen Winkler, 2003. "Ncaa Scholarship Limits and Competitive Balance in College Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(1), pages 3-18, February.
    2. Steven Salaga & Rodney Fort, 2017. "Structural Change in Competitive Balance in Big-Time College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(1), pages 27-41, February.
    3. Brian M. Mills & Steven Salaga, 2015. "Historical Time Series Perspectives on Competitive Balance in NCAA Division I Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 614-646, August.
    4. Craig A. Depken II & Dennis P. Wilson, 2006. "NCAA Enforcement and Competitive Balance in College Football," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 72(4), pages 826-845, April.
    5. James Quirk, 2004. "College football conferences and competitive balance," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 63-75.
    6. Brown, Robert W, 1993. "An Estimate of the Rent Generated by a Premium College Football Player," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(4), pages 671-684, October.
    7. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(3), pages 242-242.
    8. Steven Salaga & Alan Ostfield & Jason Winfree, 2014. "Revenue Sharing with Heterogeneous Investments in Sports Leagues: Share Media, Not Stadiums," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 45(1), pages 1-19, August.
    9. Peter K. Hunsberger & Seth R. Gitter, 2015. "What is a Blue Chip Recruit Worth? Estimating the Marginal Revenue Product of College Football Quarterbacks," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 664-690, August.
    10. David J. Berri & Stacey L. Brook & Bernd Frick & Aju J. Fenn & Roberto Vicente-Mayoral, 2005. "The Short Supply of Tall People: Competitive Imbalance and the National Basketball Association," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 1029-1041, December.
    11. Robert Brown, 2011. "Research Note: Estimates of College Football Player Rents," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(2), pages 200-212, April.
    12. Fleisher, Arthur III & Shughart, William II & Tollison, Robert D. & Goff, Brian L., 1988. "Crime or punishment? : Enforcement of the NCAA football cartel," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 10(4), pages 433-451, December.
    13. E. Eckard, 1998. "The NCAA Cartel and Competitive Balance in College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 13(3), pages 347-369, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jeremy M. Losak & Benjamin J. Posmanick & Raymond D. Sauer, 2024. "On the Value of a Premium College Football Player: Evaluating the Literature," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(4), pages 472-506, May.
    2. Craig Garthwaite & Jordan Keener & Matthew Notowidigdo & Nicole Ozminkowski, 2020. "Who Profits from Amateurism? Rent-Sharing in Modern College Sports," Working Papers 2020-117, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    3. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2019. "Does the NCAA’s Collegiate Model Promote Competitive Balance? Power-5 Conference Football Versus the NFL," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 654-670, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jaret Treber & Rachel Levy & Victor A. Matheson, 2013. "Gender differences in competitive balance in intercollegiate basketball," Chapters, in: Eva Marikova Leeds & Michael A. Leeds (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Women in Sports, chapter 12, pages 251-268, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Rodney Fort, 2018. "Modeling Competitive Imbalance and Self-Regulation in College Sports," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 231-251, March.
    3. Brian M. Mills & Steven Salaga, 2015. "Historical Time Series Perspectives on Competitive Balance in NCAA Division I Basketball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(6), pages 614-646, August.
    4. Steven Salaga & Rodney Fort, 2017. "Structural Change in Competitive Balance in Big-Time College Football," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 50(1), pages 27-41, February.
    5. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Yvan J. Kelly, 2008. "Cost Reduction, Competitive Balance, and the Scheduling of Back-to-Back Games in the NBA," Working Papers 0810, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    7. Brad R. Humphreys & Jane E. Ruseski, 2009. "Monitoring Cartel Behavior and Stability: Evidence from NCAA Football," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 75(3), pages 720-735, January.
    8. Matthew Philip Makofske, 2018. "Are you hiring Johnny Football or Johnny Doe? Uncertain labour quality and the measurement of monopsony in college football," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(22), pages 2415-2430, May.
    9. Jill S. Harris, 2018. "State of Play: How Do College Football Programs Compete for Student Athletes?," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 269-281, March.
    10. Lee, Travis, 2020. "Competitive Balance in the National Hockey League after Unrestricted Free Agency and the Salary Cap," MPRA Paper 108400, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Trey Dronyk-Trosper & Brandli Stitzel, 2017. "Lock-In and Team Effects," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(4), pages 376-387, May.
    12. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2019. "Does the NCAA’s Collegiate Model Promote Competitive Balance? Power-5 Conference Football Versus the NFL," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(5), pages 654-670, June.
    13. Brad R. Humphreys & Jane E. Ruseski, 2018. "Strategic Interaction in a Repeated Game: Evidence from NCAA Football Recruiting," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 52(2), pages 283-303, March.
    14. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2017. "The Uncertainty-of-Outcome Hypothesis and the Industrial Organization of Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(3), pages 298-317, April.
    15. Kathleen Carroll & Brad R. Humphreys, 2016. "Opportunistic Behavior in a Cartel Setting," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(6), pages 601-628, August.
    16. Hojun Sung & Brian M. Mills & Younghoon Lee, 2022. "Moments of Competitive Balance in Major League Soccer," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(3), pages 329-354, April.
    17. Ira Horowitz, 2018. "Competitive Balance in the NBA Playoffs," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 63(2), pages 215-227, October.
    18. Jason A. Winfree, 2021. "If You Don'T Like The Outcome, Change The Contest," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 329-343, January.
    19. Michael Lewis & Yeujun Yoon, 2018. "An Empirical Examination of the Development and Impact of Star Power in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 155-187, February.
    20. Geoffrey N Tuck & Athol R Whitten, 2013. "Lead Us Not into Tanktation: A Simulation Modelling Approach to Gain Insights into Incentives for Sporting Teams to Tank," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(11), pages 1-10, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:revind:v:52:y:2018:i:2:d:10.1007_s11151-017-9606-8. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.