Club Objectives and Ticket Pricing in Professional Team Sports

Abstract

In this paper we analyze and compare the behavior of sports clubs in a profit and a win maximization league if the decisions on the optimal ticket price and the talent demand have to be made simultaneously. From this 2-decision-variable model, a few interesting conclusions, regarding the impact of the player salary level or a stadium capacity constraint on the ticket price, can be drawn. Also, some important policy implications are considered such as imposing maximum ticket prices, imposing salary caps and granting a government subsidy.