May 2013
2 posts
Utterly Awesome Graphic
http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228
World's Simplest Revenue Analysis
Six Major College Conferences revenue in 2011-12, per EADA: $5,184,916,365
Those same conferences in 2010-11, also per EADA: $4,882,657,118
One-year Change: $302 million.
April 2013
3 posts
Cool meta-analysis of the change in how sports...
http://sportsmediaguy.wordpress.com/2013/04/12/the-ncaa-a-change-gonna-come/
David Drummond's remarks from 2012
A must read: http://law.scu.edu/sportslaw/file/Drummond-speech.pdf
I hadn’t realized it, but David Drummond’s remarks from Santa Clara Sports Law Symposium are online. Link is above. Go read!
Must Watch TV, Chris Hayes's discussion
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/all-in-/51399243#51399243
March 2013
5 posts
Dave Berri at Freakonomics asks: "How About a Free...
I’d recommend reading Dave Berri’s “How About a Free Market for College Athletes?”
Making Riches look like Rags
(note: for some reason i though I’d posted this a while back, but I couldn’t seem to find it on the website. So forgive the duplication, but here it is again)
Making Riches look like Rags: How NCAA-style accounting can transform a small profit into a two million-dollar loss.
In 2011, the University of Nebraska-Omaha (UNO) made the strategic decision to move from Division II sports to...
Sportsgeekonomics in the News
Patrick Hruby’s current Sports on Earth piece,The Gold-Plating of College Sports, is a very well-written piece on this phenomenon. Sports economics explained very well. And he cites favorably to our own sportsgeekonomics.com study of the same issue: Monopoly Rents in Action: Gold-plating among Non-Revenue Sports at FBS programs: An Empirical Study.
So what’s not to like? Go read...
Worth your time
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-400_162-57574401/march-madness-ncaa-fights-full-court-press-on-player-pay/
No time to discuss, but I encourage you to read Brian Montopoli’s piece.
Frank Deford on (whether he knows it or not)...
February 2013
1 post
Jonathan Mahler with another "Who needs the NCAA?"...
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-02-27/could-the-miami-scandal-bring-down-the-ncaa-.html
Mahler offers a strong conclusion:
Once you start stripping away the senseless rules and regulations, the association’s multimillion-dollar compliance empire quickly crumbles. What’s left? An organization that hangs nets, keeps records and puts on a postseason basketball tournament that anyone would leap...
January 2013
6 posts
News coverage of the NCAA self-investigation
I recommend reading Dan Wetzel’s article:
NCAA’s mishandling of Miami case reason for college athletes to get endorsement deals
And then you can head to Andy Staples’s http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/college-football/news/20130124/mark-emmert-ncaa-amateurism-changes/
And also Gregg Doyel’s piece from last week:...
Well, duh
New study out yesterday (which you may have missed because of a certain fake girlfriend story) saying that schools spend more on their athletes than on non-athletes. You can read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/17/education/top-public-colleges-in-ncaa-favor-sports-over-academics.html?_r=1&
Well, duh.
According to the New York Times, the methodology for this is to tally up all of the...
Great moments in marketing: Beneventum
Waaaaay back when, before there was a Roman Empire, Rome was a small city state and it got into a war with a neighboring people called the Samnites. They had a series of brutal wars but ultimately Rome conquered Samnium and absorbed it into its growing territory. One of the cities they conquered was called Maleventum by the Romans (it may have been Maloentum originally… remember in Latin V...
Further Thoughts on Jeopardy! wagering (and...
Yesterday, I dashed off a post regarding proper Jeopardy! betting tactics based on the unusual circumstance of a tie for first place on last night’s episode. I encourage you to go read it (How to bet, and not to bet, in Jeopardy!), but the conclusion was:
Third Place. Here is where I see the most bad betting and tonight’s show was no exception. As the player in third place, you need to...
How to bet, and not to bet, in Jeopardy!
On tonight’s Jeopardy! a fairly rare thing happened — the game ended with a tie for first place. When Michael Felder (@InTheBleachers) announced this on twitter, my immediate reaction, without even knowing which of the contestants (in terms of their position prior to Final Jeopardy!) ended up in the tie, was that someone bet incorrectly. This post is designed to explore that...
"Money for college athletes: not if, but how" :...
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/money-college-athletes-not-204128623—ncaaf.html
I would have like to see some discussion of why this is a collective decision at all (e.g., not discussion of why schools or conferences can’t just decide on their own, or negotiate with a players’ association), but I also realize I am an antitrust nerd.
December 2012
2 posts
Rachel Bachman with a new piece on college...
Video: http://live.wsj.com/video/college-footballs-bigmoney-bigrisk-model/AA565F92-0A88-4CB6-ADD9-FE30CE16B1F2.html?KEYWORDS=college+football#!AA565F92-0A88-4CB6-ADD9-FE30CE16B1F2
Print: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324024004578169472607407806.html
Monopoly Rents in Action: Gold-plating among...
When college sports programs tell you that without a nationwide agreement to cap compensation to college football players at the value of an athletic scholarship, there would be no non-revenue sports (and especially no non-revenue men’s sports), they are telling you a tall tale. I’ve already written about this myth in “Excuses, Not Reasons: 13 Myths about (not) Paying College Athletes,”[1]...
November 2012
2 posts
Patrick Hruby's "Amateur Hour"
I highly recommend Patrick Hruby’s “Amateur Hour” piece (http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/40374506/) for Sports on Earth and not just because he cites to my “13 Myths” paper. Read it!
Neat Graphic from WSJ on in-state college loyalty
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203846804578101281578171860.html#articleTabs%3Dinteractive
October 2012
1 post
Sportsgeekonomics brings folks together
Rascher (rabid Cal fan) and I (Stanford) are going to Big Game together with our significant others. Can Middle East peace be far behind?
July 2012
5 posts
National Letter of Indenture: Why College Athletes...
Jason Belzer and my piece from today’s Forbes can be found here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/darrenheitner/2012/07/25/national-letter-of-indenture-why-college-athletes-are-similar-to-indentured-servants-of-colonial-times/
Horribly Sad news: Pete Sauer dead at age 35
Non-Stanford fans may not know Pete Sauer, but he was part of the renaissance of our basketball program, part of the teams that re-established Stanford as a perennial contender int he Pac-10. I was saddened to hear just now that he died after an accident at a pickup game at age 35.
...
A Blast from My Past: Diplomacy Paradoxes article
I wrote this 15 years ago, when I was extremely into a game called Diplomacy. Non-board game fans can probably skip, except to see how I looked when I was young and (reasonably) handsome.
http://www.diplom.org/Zine/S1997M/Schwarz/Paradox.html
New Home for the Bylaw Blog
I’m probably the last to know that John Infante is now publishing his insights at http://www.athleticscholarships.net/bylaw-blog.htm
But in case you didn’t know too, now you do!
May 2012
3 posts
Andy's second sports law final exam
My last question was about IP rights (http://sportsgeekonomics.tumblr.com/post/13925788205/sports-ip-antitrust-final-exam-question-if-i-were).
Today’s exam (purely for fun and amusement, I am not teaching) is inspired by a twitter discussion between Bomani Jones and Andy Glockner.
NBA Players B, J, and W decide amongst themselves in advance of their co-incident free agency periods to sign...
Excuse the tangent: e-publishers & Apple case
Despite my focus on (college) sports economics on this blog, in my day job I am an antitrust economist who works on cases in all sorts of industries (with sports just being one of many).
Anyway, yesterday a judge made a major ruling in the private plaintiff version of the Apple & e-book publishers case worthy of discussion. In particular, the Plaintiffs survived a motion to dismiss (not...
The secret victory for competition
The BCS is moving to a 4-team playoff and news reports have all missed the most important economic aspect of the change, a major victory for competition. Namely, the move to a 4-team playoff will mark the end of NCAA Bylaws §§ 17.9.4 and 18.7.2.3, which limit NCAA member participation to a single licensed Bowl game. Once the major conferences announce their desired playoff format, we can all bet...
April 2012
1 post
Various CFB Post-Season Options Discussed
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/331003-status-4-3-12.html
Free Market College Sports
Patrick Hruby writes about how the NCAA should look like a problem to economic conservatives. And he quotes me a lot. I wish I had not used Ball State in one of my examples, but other than that, I don’t think I embarrassed myself too much.
Read it here: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/30/the-free-market-case-against-the-ncaa-chokehold-on/?page=all#pagebreak
March 2012
3 posts
Patrick Hruby interviews Josh Luchs
I think Hruby does a good job of getting to the essence of Luchs’s thesis. Check it out:
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/03/an-agents-plan-for-fixing-college-sports/255168/
Eidelson Argues for a Unionization Aproach
http://www.salon.com/2012/03/11/madness_of_march_ncaa_gets_paid_players_dont/
February 2012
2 posts
Sports matter to us a lot
Mitt Romney got 410,523 votes in yesterday’s Michigan primary. That’s equal to attendance at 3.67 University of Michigan football games in Ann Arbor. And his main competitor, Rick Santorum, got votes equal to 3.38 Wolverine sell outs.
So two thoughts — one, that the margin of victory is equal to about one end-zone’s worth of voters. More than Romney was able to get...
Technical Antitrust Thoughts
These are relevant, I promise, but apologies for being very technical in this post. And also apologies for having taken so long to get this written down. January and February have proven very busy for reasons unrelated to sports economics.
Inelastic Demand/Supply
Inelastic demand is a situation where no matter now high you raise the price, consumers will continue to purchase (and if it’s...
January 2012
7 posts
Relative Quiet
I suspect most of you are appreciating my silence, but suffice it to say I am swamped with my actual job, I so simply have not had time to think critically about sports economics in my (non-existent) free time.
I’m off to Washington, D.C. today for a whirlwind visit to an antitrust agency, then back home tomorrow. Not sure though when I’ll post something, but I do want to talk about...
Richard Southall in HuffPo
Worth your time: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-m-southall/college-athletics-reform_b_1210919.html
Thoughtful piece on the Have/Have Not split within...
Dave O’Brien of CSBN writes,
“It is time … to recognize that there is as much of a divide (if not more) within Division I as exists between Division I, II, and III. The discussion should not simply be whether the BCS/equity conferences/schools should unilaterally decide that it is in their interest to form Division IV within the NCAA structure or break away from the NCAA...
The parable of the mining town
Imagine a town with 300 mining companies and a giant mother-lode of minerals, in a lush oasis far out in an otherwise barren desert nation (but imagine this desert nation also has antitrust laws just like ours). There is no other reasonable livelihood for hundreds of miles, perhaps even for the whole country. But because there are 300 mining firms, there would be vigorous competition among...
Sportsgeekonomics in USA Today
USA Today has a piece on why they think paying college athletes is bad, with a heavy emphasis on Myth 8 and Myth 9. They were kind enough to ask Dan Rascher and me to offer an opposing view. Enjoy.
By the way, when we wrote our piece, we hadn’t seen the whole USA Today editorial. If I had, I am sure we would have explicitly said that you can be a student *and* and employee. But I hope...
Sportsgeekonomics makes its way to WSJ
Rachel Bachman draws upon some of Dan’s and my work in her interesting analysis “When Football Is an Economic Strategy”
Rascher & Schwarz in NYT
Your authors here at Sportsgeekonomics, both the prolix, pugnacious Schwarz and the understated, excellent Rascher, were featured twice in this weekend’s New York Times.
Saturday: The College Sports Cartel
Sunday: Let’s Start Paying College Athletes
Enjoy!
December 2011
30 posts
The $2,000 Stipend and the Rule of Reason: an...
( from “Sports Litigation Alert” Volume 8, Issue 24)
By Andy Schwarz
Boiled down its core, the antitrust law of cooperation among competitors says that the cooperation must be reasonable and necessary to create a product that otherwise would not exist. So that’s the lens to view any NCAA agreement among its members. It’s part of a broader principle that lawyers and antitrust...
Come and see the violence inherent in the system
Ok, maybe this isn’t violence, but it’s something close to racism or class-based snobbery. This was one of the listed reasons for Tennessee Tech’s opposition to allowing other schools to give their athletes $2,000:
I want to share a very supportive and knowledgeable university professor’s view of this change in legislation. He writes “Perhaps my biggest...
"Title IX doesn't work like you think it does"...
This is the last of my 4 posts for today on Title IX. In the previous three posts, I’ve showed that Title IX does not result in equal spending on men’s and women’s sports, does not result in equal spending on men’s and women’s athletic scholarships (except at Georgia), and for about 2/3 of the BCS AQ schools, does not result in female participation in athletics that...
"Title IX doesn't work like you think it does"...
Okay, having shown Title IX does not result in any BCS AQ school spending equally on men’s and women’s sports, and results in only one BCS AQ school (Georgia) spending as much on women’s scholarships as men’s (both of which tests are NOT required by Title IX), now I want to address what Title IX is supposed to require and see whether schools comply.
Unfortunately, Title IX...
"Title IX doesn't work like you think it does"...
Having shown Title IX does not result in schools spending anything close to 50 cents of every dollar on women’s sports overall, I’ll now show it also does not result in schools offering 50% (or more) of their athletic scholarships to women athletes either.
In fact, of the 66 BCS AQ schools as of 2010-11, only one school — the University of Georgia — actually funds...
"Title IX doesn't work like you think it does"...
The new 2010-2011 EADA numbers are finally on my laptop so I figured I’d go through the BCS schools (as of the 2010 season) to illustrate how Title IX does not mean equal spending on men’s and women’s college sports.
(I’ve tackled this before less systematically, see for example this post.)
Some people think Title IX means a college needs to spend the same amount,...
If you thought a $2,000 cap was antitrust trouble,...
Last week I wrote about how the NCAA’s newly raised collective cap on maximum compensation to college athletes, which was set to be equal to the old “full ride” GIA plus a stipend up to $2,000 was still likely an antitrust problem for the NCAA.
Apparently, the NCAA (or better put, its member colleges) has (have) decided to double down, because news reports indicate that the new...
