IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/soecon/v72y2006i4p826-845.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

NCAA Enforcement and Competitive Balance in College Football

Author

Listed:
  • Craig A. Depken
  • Dennis P. Wilson

Abstract

This article investigates the effects of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) enforcement on the competitive balance of major college football conferences in the context of the standard empirical crime model. Using an unbalanced panel describing 11 major Division IA football conferences from 1953 through 2003, NCAA enforcement efforts, in the form of investigations and probations, and the severity of punishment, measured as the average length of probations imposed, are found to have opposite but not necessarily offsetting effects on competitive balance. Greater levels of enforcement in a conference improve competitive balance. On the other hand, greater severity of punishment reduces competitive balance. The empirical evidence indicates that these changes take approximately five years to be fully dissipated. Overall, the empirical results indicate that, on average, the net effect of NCAA enforcement is an improvement in competitive balance.

Suggested Citation

  • Craig A. Depken & 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:soecon:v:72:y:2006:i:4:p:826-845
    DOI: 10.1002/j.2325-8012.2006.tb00740.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2006.tb00740.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/j.2325-8012.2006.tb00740.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gary S. Becker, 1974. "Crime and Punishment: An Economic Approach," NBER Chapters, in: Essays in the Economics of Crime and Punishment, pages 1-54, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226253268 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Craig Depken, 1999. "Free-Agency and the Competitiveness of Major League Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 14(3), pages 205-217, May.
    4. Feinberg, Robert M, 1980. "Antitrust Enforcement and Subsequent Price Behavior," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 62(4), pages 609-612, November.
    5. Grogger, Jeffrey, 1991. "Certainty vs. Severity of Punishment," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(2), pages 297-309, April.
    6. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 1995. "Cross-subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 1265-1299, September.
    7. Garbade, Kenneth D & Silber, William L & White, Lawrence J, 1982. "Market Reaction to the Filing of Antitrust Suits: An Aggregate and Cross-Sectional Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(4), pages 686-691, November.
    8. 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.
    9. Blundell, Richard & Bond, Stephen, 1998. "Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 115-143, August.
    10. Edward Nissan, 1998. "Effects of antitrust enforcement on aggregate concentration," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 25(2), pages 112-117, May.
    11. Levitt, Steven D, 1998. "Why Do Increased Arrest Rates Appear to Reduce Crime: Deterrence, Incapacitation, or Measurement Error?," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 353-372, July.
    12. 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.
    13. Nickell, Stephen J, 1981. "Biases in Dynamic Models with Fixed Effects," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 49(6), pages 1417-1426, November.
    14. Block, Michael K & Feinstein, Jonathan S, 1986. "The Spillover Effect of Antitrust Enforcement," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 68(1), pages 122-131, February.
    15. Brad R. Humphreys, 2002. "Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 133-148, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Dorian Owen, 2014. "Measurement of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 3, pages 41-59, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    2. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    3. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2019. "A Bias-Corrected Estimator of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 479-508, May.
    4. Ishita Chatterjee & Ranjan Ray, 2009. "Crime, Corruption and Institutions," Monash Economics Working Papers 20-09, Monash University, Department of Economics.
    5. Fort, Rodney & Maxcy, Joel & Diehl, Mark, 2016. "Uncertainty by regulation: Rottenberg׳s invariance principle," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 454-467.
    6. Andrew Larsen & Aju J. Fenn & Erin Leanne Spenner, 2006. "The Impact of Free Agency and the Salary Cap on Competitive Balance in the National Football League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 7(4), pages 374-390, November.
    7. Kelly Goossens, 2006. "Competitive balance in european football: comparison by adapting measures: national measure of seasonal imbalance and Top 3," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 2(2), pages 77-122, Dicembre.
    8. Young Hoon Lee & Yongdai Kim & Sara Kim, 2018. "Unbiased Estimation of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues with Unbalanced Schedules," Working Papers 1801, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    9. Lihui Zhang, 2016. "Are youth offenders responsive to changing sanctions? Evidence from the Canadian Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2003," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(2), pages 515-554, May.
    10. Robert J. Lemke & Matthew Leonard & Kelebogile Tlhokwane, 2010. "Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 316-348, June.
    11. Entorf, Horst & Winkler, Peter, 2001. "The economics of crime: investigating the drugs-crime channel: empirical evidence from panel data of the German states," ZEW Discussion Papers 01-37, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    12. Anthony C. Krautmann & Young Hoon Lee & Kevin Quinn, 2011. "Playoff Uncertainty and Pennant Races," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 12(5), pages 495-514, October.
    13. Ayse İmrohoroĝlu & Antonio Merlo & Peter Rupert, 2006. "Understanding the determinants of crime," Journal of Economics and Finance, Springer;Academy of Economics and Finance, vol. 30(2), pages 270-284, June.
    14. Evan S. Totty & Mark F. Owens, 2011. "Salary Caps and Competitive Balance in Professional Sports Leagues," Journal for Economic Educators, Middle Tennessee State University, Business and Economic Research Center, vol. 11(2), pages 46-56, Fall.
    15. Thomas A. Garrett & Lesli S. Ott, 2008. "City business cycles and crime," Working Papers 2008-026, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    16. Liam J. A. Lenten, 2015. "Measurement of Competitive Balance in Conference and Divisional Tournament Design," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 3-25, January.
    17. Lance Lochner, 2007. "Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(1), pages 444-460, March.
    18. Henri Njangang & Luc Ndeffo Nembot & Joseph Pasky Ngameni, 2020. "Does financial development reduce the size of the informal economy in sub‐Saharan African countries?," African Development Review, African Development Bank, vol. 32(3), pages 375-391, September.
    19. Qi Ge & Brad R. Humphreys & Alexander Eisert, 2022. "Vertical Integration and Competitive Balance in Professional Sports: Evidence from Minor League Baseball," Working Papers 22-07, Department of Economics, West Virginia University.
    20. Pelnar, Gregory, 2007. "Antitrust Analysis of Sports Leagues," MPRA Paper 5382, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:soecon:v:72:y:2006:i:4:p:826-845. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1002/(ISSN)2325-8012 .

    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.