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...

Transfer restrictions have a long tradition in professional sports but came under heavy attack in recent years (e.g. Bosman ruling, Monti system). Based on a bargaining model with stochastic player productivity, we show that more restrictive transfer rules reallocate ex post bargaining power...