This paper develops a contest model of a professional sports league in which clubs maximize a weighted sum of profits and wins (utility maximization). The model analyzes how more win-oriented behavior of certain clubs affects talent investments, competitive balance, and club profits. Moreover,...

In the December 2002 issue of the American Economic Review, Mark Duggan and Steven D. Levitt published an article on corruption in professional sumo. In the present article, the authors update the study of Duggan and Levitt to take into account changes since January 2000. The authors find strong...

Recent studies of the demand for sports clearly indicate that stars play an important role in promoting fan interest. However, on theoretical grounds it is controversial if a star's talent superiority and/or a star's popularity drive match attendance and hence increase gate revenues. Using...

The peculiar German football governance structure may be well suited to prevent integrity problems resulting from multiple club ownership or from ownership by "undesired'' persons or entities. However, this effect comes at a price. In the vacuum of power generated within large member...