|
May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy | 
 enlarge | Author: Andrew Zimbalist
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
Category: Book
List Price: $18.95
Buy New: $13.00
You Save: $5.95 (31%)
New (15) Used (12) from $8.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 167317
Media: Paperback
Edition: Exp Upd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 208
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.6
ISBN: 081579729X
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357
EAN: 9780815797296
ASIN: 081579729X
Publication Date: April 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
NEW EXPANDED AND UPDATED PAPERBACK EDITION Received ForeWord Magazine's Silver Book of the Year Award in Business and Economics The business of baseball stands in sharp contrast to the games wholesome image as Americas favorite pastime. Major league baseball is a deeply troubled industry, facing chronic problems that threaten its future: persistent labor tensions, competitive dominance by high-revenue teams, migration of game telecasts to cable, and escalating ticket prices. Amid the threat of contraction, existing franchises are demanding public subsidies for new stadiums, while viable host cities are begging for teams. The games core base of fans is aging, and MLB is doing precious little to attract a younger audience. According to Andrew Zimbalist, these problems have a common cause: monopoly. Since 1922 MLB has benefited from a presumed exemption from the nations antitrust laws. It is the only top-level professional baseball league in the country, and each of its teams is assigned an exclusive territory. Monopolies have market power, which they use to derive higher returns, misallocate resources, and take advantage of consumers. Major league baseball is no exception. In May the Best Team Win, Zimbalist provides a critical analysis of the baseball industry, focusing on the abuses and inefficiencies that have plagued the game since the 1990s, when franchise owners appointed their colleague Bud Selig as MLBs "independent" commissioner. Run by a shrinking and self-selecting group of owners subject to no oversight, MLB suffers from a lack of competitive pressure. Several large franchises are owned by media companies that have shackled their teams to lucrative broadcast and cable contractsoften making it impossible for fans to see games on television. Others own entities that do business with the teams, charging inflated prices for facility management, concessions, and catering. Complex intracompany transactions can reduce franchise revenues substantially, causing operating losses for teams while the owners still make millions. Zimbalist estimates that tens of millions of dollars are sheltered from MLB revenue each yearmore than enough to eliminate the operating losses that led Selig to claim contraction and other radical remedies as fiscal necessities. Zimbalist believes that many of baseballs problems would be effectively addressed by removing the industrys presumed antitrust exemption. He urges reconsideration of baseballs antitrust status, encouraging legislation to force monopoly cable providers to de-bundle their services, along with private initiatives to cultivate the games fan base, such as offering special ticket prices for families, allowing fans on the field after games, and involving players more in community events. Zimbalist also provides MLB with guidelines to reconstruct the incentive system underlying its revenue sharing policies. Zimbalist believes that consumers need an industry that is subject to judicial checks and competitive pressures. Only then will baseball fans be able to put the traumas of the 1990s and early 2000s behind them and utter freely the simple and enduring exhortation: May the best team win!
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Well done discussion of all relevant points... July 18, 2008
Excellent book written by Andrew Zimbalist. Well written w/extremely well-fleshed out arguments. The only thing I didn't like (and this is a style thing) is the use of footnotes after the narrative in an appendix. Flipping back and forth sucks.
Excellent Look at Competitive Balance within the Game April 19, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
In "May the Best Team Win," economics professor Andrew Zimbalist documents problems in Major League Baseball that alienate young people who would otherwise become fans of the sport. The book is essentially a sequel to his earlier book, "Baseball and Billions," which examined how team owners use creative accounting to conceal revenues in order to justify offering lower salaries to players and demanding greater taxpayer subsidies for stadiums. In "May the Best Team Win," Zimbalist presents updated findings for the years following the strike of 1994, focusing on how the transition from broadcast television to cable is widening the revenue disparities between small- and large-market teams and ruining competitive balance within the game. He demonstrates that the baseball's revenue sharing program actually discourages small-market teams from investing shared revenues in player payroll, further exacerbating the problem. The book concludes that divestiture of Major League Baseball into separate and distinct leagues represents the best opportunity to restore competitive balance.
Zimbalist offers extensive statistical evidence that the relationship between player payroll and winning percentage became much stronger after 1995, with lower-payroll teams essentially unable to win a playoff series. Revenue gulfs between small-market and large-market teams rose rapidly because income obtained by large-market teams via televising their games on regional sports networks available only on cable and satellite television are not shared among the teams. Although the league increased sharing of other revenue sources following the strike, small-market teams actually receive more of this funding when they lose than when they win. Thus, owners of these teams, who often choose not to invest shared revenues they receive in player payroll, face a financial incentive to lose games. In fact, as soon as they are eliminated from the playoff races, many of these owners trade many of their highest-paid players to large-market teams in order to qualify for more shared revenues.
The book explains that owners of large-market teams have the ability to conceal earnings that would otherwise be shared. Many of these owners leverage their teams to funnel revenue into their other business investments, such as their regional sports networks or real estate holdings. Owners of large-market teams can also reduce the amount of revenue they must share by reducing their publicly-disclosed player payrolls through offering their own players non-payroll compensation or promises of future compensation when their playing days end, such as broadcasting jobs or front office positions. The bottom line is that wealthy teams do not have to share with teams located in smaller television markets, that teams in these markets have little incentive to win, and that fans have little incentive to follow these teams.
To address these problems, Zimbalist would divest Major League Baseball into separate and distinct American and National leagues to eliminate the exclusive broadcast territories that teams currently enjoy under the antitrust exemption. This is extremely important because these broadcast territories enable incumbent teams to prevent new startup clubs from entering nearby cities, such as Baltimore owner Peter Angelos' actions to prevent Washington, D.C., from receiving a team. Eliminating the broadcast territories would clear the way for new teams to enter the largest markets like New York and Boston, creating an equalizing effect for team revenues and, thus, resolving many of the game's competitive balance problems.
"May the Best Team Win" offers an excellent look at the problems plaguing baseball's appeal among the youngest generation of fans. Zimbalist does sports enthusiasts a great favor by explaining the intricate statistical relationships between team payroll, revenue sharing, and competitive balance in terms that everyone can understand. Although it is strongly recommended that fans read Zimbalist's first book, "Baseball and Billions," before reading this one, "May the Best Team Win" offers a great look at how greed has corrupted our national pastime, and how to fix it. One can only hope that one day the owners will listen.
Useful and informative December 24, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
A very useful and informative economic discussion of baseball. What economists often do is point out the obvious, but it is only obvious after it has been pointed out. Most interesting and informative was the discussion of the cost-revenue structure of baseball teams, and if owners actually lose money as they say. I only wish the book were longer and attempted to do more.
The author is on solid ground with the analyses and could have added some more topics to look at from the economics viewpoint. Maybe it could be updated now.
Very Insightful March 28, 2007
I thought this book gave me a brand new insight on buisness and the way this economy works. Zimbalist gave brilliant views of the corruption among the game.
Great Book February 1, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I work for a professional sports franchise (but not baseball), and this book really helped me understand the issues surrounding a professional team. This covers some major subjects, such as labor agreements, stadium financing, and broadcasting deals, by using major league baseball as an example. Anyone wanting to further their knowledge of how the economics of a professional sports league should grab this book.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
