 | Fans of the World, Unite!: A (Capitalist) Manifesto for Sports Consumers Subjects: Professional sports -- Economic aspects -- United States; Sports team owners -- United States; Monopolies -- United States; Competition -- United States; Ross, a law professor at Penn State, and Szymanski, an economics professor at Cass Business School in London, believe American sports fans are in an abusive relationship. Since the four major leagues (baseball, football, basketball and hockey) are essentially run by the owners, they can wallow in greed and laziness while fans idly suffer: Clubs who are guaranteed perpetual membership in a monopoly league and who then get to set the rules for themselves have every incentive to act in their own self-interest and contrary to the interest of fans and taxpayers. The authors outline a plan to end that, stressing league control via an independent entity (as is the case in NASCAR) and employing soccer's promotion and relegation system, which demotes underperforming teams and encourages competition. With real-life examples and solid research, the authors support their version of a sports utopia. In the end, however, the authors' stodgy, academic writing (they use stadia as the plural for stadium) becomes tedious and stifling. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved All rights reserved. Stephen F. Ross is Professor of Law at the Pennsylvania State University Dickinson School of Law where he founded the Institute for Sports Law, Research, and Policy. Stefan Szymanski is the MBA Dean and Professor of Economics at Cass Business School at London's City University. |
