Sports Business and the Theory of Multisided Markets

Despite still being younger than a decade, the theory of multisided market has offered numerous valuable insights for the analysis of industries in which a supplier serves two distinct customer groups that are indirectly interrelated by externalities. Examples include payment systems, matching agencies, commercial media and software platforms. However, professional sports markets have largely been neglected so far in this kind of research although they possess the characteristics of multisided markets. We contribute to filling this gap by describing the platform elements of professional suppliers of sports events and outlining issues where an application of this theoretical framework is likely to provide valuable insights and to add to the existing knowledge. Among these problems are integrative pricing strategies of sports clubs towards such different customer groups like attendees, broadcasters, sponsors, etc., including their welfare and antitrust implications, design decisions of sports associations in order to promote positive feedback loops among the customer groups as well as management strategies to reinforce positive externalities among customer groups and alleviate negative ones. We thank Anna Lund Jepsen for valuable comments on an earlier version of this paper and Barbara Güldenring for excellent editorial assistance.Sports economics, sports management, two-sided markets, multisided platforms, professional sports business, pricing strategies, broadcasting rights

Sports Business and Multisided Markets: Towards a New Analytical Framework? (Long Version)

Despite still being younger than a decade, the theory of multisided markets has offered numerous valuable insights for the analysis of industries in which a supplier serves two distinct customer groups that are indirectly interrelated through externalities. Examples include payment systems, matching agencies, commercial media, and software platforms. However, professional sports mar-kets have largely been neglected so far in this kind of research although they possess the characteristics of multisided markets. This conceptual paper con-tributes to filling this gap by describing the platform elements of professional suppliers of sports events and conceptually outlining issues where an applica-tion of this theoretical framework is likely to provide valuable insights and to add to the existing knowledge. Among these problems are integrative pricing strategies of sports clubs towards such different customer groups like attendees, broadcasters, sponsors, etc., including their welfare and antitrust implications, design decisions of sports associations in order to promote positive feedback loops among the customer groups as well as management strategies to reinforce positive externalities among customer groups and alleviate negative ones. The authors would like to thank Anna Lund Jepsen and Nadine Lindstädt for valuable comments on earlier versions of this paper as well as Barbara Güldenring and Liz Patti for editorial assistance. A substantially shorter version of this paper will be published in Sports, Business, Management: An International Journal in 2011.sports economics, sports management, two-sided markets, multisided platforms, professional sports business, pricing strategies, broadcasting rights

Sports Business and the Theory of Multisided Markets

Despite still being younger than a decade, the theory of multisided market has offered numerous valuable insights for the analysis of non-ordinary industries in which a supplier serves two distinct customer groups that are indirectly interrelated by externalities. Examples include payment systems, matching agencies, commercial media and software platforms. However, professional sports markets have largely been neglected so far in this kind of research although they possess the characteristics of multisided markets. We contribute to filling this gap by describing the platform elements of professional suppliers of sports events and outlining problems where an application of this theoretical framework is likely to provide valuable insights and to add to the existing knowledge. Among these problems are integrative pricing strategies of sports clubs towards such different customer groups like attendees, broadcasters, sponsors, etc., including their welfare and antitrust implications, design decisions of sports associations in order to promote positive feedback loops among the customer groups as well as strategies to reinforce positive externalities among customer groups and alleviate negative ones.sports economics, two-sided markets, multisided platforms, professional sports business, pricing strategies, broadcasting rights

Explaining the Decreased Use of International Courts - The Case of the ICJ

The popularity of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the subject of much controversy. This paper examines usage of the ICJ by all United Nations (UN) member states as compared with its usage by those states with the top-ten economies of the world. Five hypotheses explaining the decrease in ICJ usage by the top-ten economies are presented as follows: (1) a home-bias of judges, (2) the diversification of international tribunals, (3) changes in the composition of the cases filed, (4) the (re-)allocation of power, and (5) an increased heterogeneity of external institutions among UN member states. We find empirical evidence that an increase in UN membership has led to increased heterogeneity, which in turn has led to a decline in usage of the ICJ by the top-ten economies.

Sports Business and Multisided Markets: Towards a New Analytical Framework? (Long Version)

Despite still being younger than a decade, the theory of multisided markets has offered numerous valuable insights for the analysis of industries in which a supplier serves two distinct customer groups that are indirectly interrelated by externalities. Examples include payment systems, matching agencies, commercial media, and software platforms. However, professional sports markets have largely been neglected so far in this kind of research although they possess the characteristics of multisided markets. This conceptual paper contributes to filling this gap by describing the platform elements of professional suppliers of sports events and conceptually outlining issues where an application of this theoretical framework is likely to provide valuable insights and to add to the existing knowledge. Among these problems are integrative pricing strategies of sports clubs towards such different customer groups like attendees, broadcasters, sponsors, etc., including their welfare and antitrust implications, design decisions of sports associations in order to promote positive feedback loops among the customer groups as well as management strategies to reinforce positive externalities among customer groups and alleviate negative ones.sports economics, sports management, two-sided markets, multisided platforms, professional sports business, pricing strategies, broadcasting rights