Marginal revenue product and salaries: Moneyball redux

Scully (1974) used a two equation regression model to estimate a baseball player’s salary to compare to the actual salary the player earned in order to determine if a player is paid his net marginal revenue product. We replicate the spirit of that paper, but introduce several useful innovations to estimate net marginal revenue products for a large sample of free-agent baseball players. Our results suggest that the highest paid free agents are overpaid, while all other free agents are underpaid or paid appropriately. We found no evidence for the notion that some clubs may be more adept at finding “bargain” free agents.net marginal revenue product; free agents; baseball

Bulls Markets: Chicago’s Basketball Business and the New Inequality

Book review by Duane W. Rockerbie of Bulls Markets: Chicago’s Basketball Business and the New Inequality, author Sean Dinces

Marginal revenue product and salaries: Moneyball redux

Scully (1974) used a two equation regression model to estimate a baseball player’s salary to compare to the actual salary the player earned in order to determine if a player is paid his net marginal revenue product. We replicate the spirit of that paper, but introduce several useful innovations to estimate net marginal revenue products for a large sample of free-agent baseball players. Our results suggest that the highest paid free agents are overpaid, while all other free agents are underpaid or paid appropriately. We found no evidence for the notion that some clubs may be more adept at finding “bargain” free agents

Exploring inter-league parity in North America: the NBA anomaly

The relative standard deviation (RSD) measure of league parity is persistently higher for the National Basketball Association (NBA) than the other three major sports leagues in North America. This anomaly spans the last three decades and is not explained by differences in league distributions of revenue, payroll or local market characteristics, placing the standard model of the professional sports league in question. The argument that a short supply of tall players is one possible explanation, but we offer a more attractive explanation. With a much greater number of scoring attempts in each game, basketball reduces the influence of random outcomes in the number of points scored per game and also season winning percentage. Our simulations demonstrate that lesser parity in the NBA is inherent in the rules of the game so that inter-league comparisons must be interpreted carefully

Of Bricks and Bats: New Stadiums, Talent Supply and Team Performance in Major League Baseball

This paper considers whether publicly-financed new facility investments encourage professional sports team owners to increase their investments in costly talent. We develop a model of a sports league that incorporates publicly-financed facility investments, the unique characteristics of the talent market, and revenue sharing to explore the complementarity between new facility amenities, the team budget decision and team performance. Our empirical results suggest that publicly-financed new stadiums do little to improve team performance, not due to restrictions in the talent market, but rather due to a lack of fan response

Of Bricks and Bats: New Stadiums, Talent Supply and Team Performance in Major League Baseball

This paper considers whether publicly-financed new facility investments encourage professional sports team owners to increase their investments in costly talent. We develop a model of a sports league that incorporates publicly-financed facility investments, the unique characteristics of the talent market, and revenue sharing to explore the complementarity between new facility amenities, the team budget decision and team performance. Our empirical results suggest that publicly-financed new stadiums do little to improve team performance, not due to restrictions in the talent market, but rather due to a lack of fan response