Team Payroll Versus Performance in Professional Sports: Is Increased Spending Associated with Greater Success?
by Grant Shorin Abstract Professional sports are a billion-dollar industry, with player salaries accounting for the largest expenditure. Comparing results between the four major North American leagues (MLB, NBA, NHL, and NFL) and examining data from 1995 through 2015, this paper seeks to answer the following question: do teams that have higher payrolls achieve greater […]
Determinants of Franchise Value in the National Basketball Association
By Matthew Van Liedekerke Franchise values in the National Basketball Association (NBA) have more than tripled over the last five years, with the average franchise worth $1.36 billion. Using panel data on NBA franchises between 2009 and 2016, this paper finds that market, performance, star players, and brand are significant determinants of franchise value at […]
Long-Term Contracts and Predicting Performance in MLB
By Drew Goldstein In this paper, I examine whether MLB teams are capable of using players’ past performance data to sufficiently estimate future production. The study is motivated by the recent trend by which teams have increasingly signed long-term contracts that lock in players for up to ten seasons into the future. To test this […]
