This paper develops a model of a professional sports league with network externalities by integrating the theory of two-sided markets into a contest model. In professional team sports, the competition of the clubs functions as a platform that enables sponsors to interact with fans. In these...

This paper outlines how the theory of contests is applied to professional team sports leagues. In the first part, we present the traditional Tullock contest and explain some basic properties of the equilibrium. We will then extend this static contest to a two-period model in order to analyze...

This paper outlines and compares the organizational structure of major sports leagues, explores the reasoning behind their formation, and derives implications for salary caps in European football. To understand why sports leagues have developed a specific organizational structure, one must take...

In 2002 the leading European football clubs reacted to the increasing player salaries by signing a voluntary agreement to limit player salaries to 70% of revenues. We analyse under which conditions a voluntary salary cap agreement is self-enforcing. Based on a simple model of a league with two...

Due to the specifics of the football governance systems and cultures of Europe and the United States, we hypothesize that the charitable foundation involvement of the National Football League (NFL) and its teams is more pronounced than that of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)...