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Is Self-Sufficiency for Women’s Collegiate Athletics a Hoop Dream? Willingness to Pay for Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tickets

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  • Francisco Rosas
  • Peter F. Orazem

Abstract

Universities spend almost $2 billion subsidizing their collegiate sports programs. Even the most popular women’s sport, basketball, fails to break even. An application of Becker’s theory of customer discrimination is used to calculate the relative preference for men’s basketball for both men and women. Median willingness to pay for men’s basketball relative to women’s basketball is 180% greater for men and 37% greater for women. Pricing each sport at its revenue maximizing price, revenues from women’s basketball are only 43% of that for men, even at a school with historically strong demand for women’s sports.

Suggested Citation

  • Francisco Rosas & Peter F. Orazem, 2014. "Is Self-Sufficiency for Women’s Collegiate Athletics a Hoop Dream? Willingness to Pay for Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tickets," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(6), pages 579-600, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:15:y:2014:i:6:p:579-600
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002512462706
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    Cited by:

    1. Francisco Rosas & Santiago Acerenza & Peter F. Orazem, 2020. "Optimal pricing strategies for a cluster of goods: own- and cross-price effects with correlated tastes," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 52(7), pages 742-755, February.

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