In Two Sports Myths and Why They're Wrong, authors Rodney Fort and Jason Winfree apply sharp economic analysis to bust a couple of the most widespread urban legends about professional athletics. Exploring the claim that player salary demands increase ticket prices and asking whether Major League Baseball should emulate the National Football League, this quick read gives us a taste of 15 Sports Myths and Why They're Wrong, forthcoming from Stanford University Press this September. Fort and Winfree take apart these common misconceptions, showing how the assumptions behind them fail to add up. They reveal how these myths perpetuate themselves, substituting the intuitive appeal of emotionally charged myths with rigorous, informed explanations that weaken their potency and loosen their grip on the sports we love. Two Sports Myths breakdown these tall tales just in time for the MLB All-Star Game and will leave you wondering what other myths will be on the chopping block later this fall.
Sports Myths uses economic principles to bust fifteen college and professional urban legends that continuously rear their heads, but that fall apart under analytical scrutiny.
In 15 Sports Myths and Why They're Wrong, authors Rodney Fort and Jason Winfree apply sharp economic analysis to bust some of the most widespread urban legends about college and professional athletics. Each chapter takes apart a common misconception, showing how the assumptions behind it fail to add up. Fort and Winfree reveal how these myths perpetuate themselves and, ultimately, how they serve a handful of powerful parties—such as franchise owners, reporters, and players—at the expense of the larger community of sports fans. From the idea that team owners and managers are inept to the notion that revenue-generating college sports pay for athletics that don't attract fans (and their cash), 15 Sports Myths and Why They're Wrong strips down pervasive accounts of how our favorite games function, allowing us to look at them in a new, more informed way. Fort and Winfree argue that substituting the intuitive appeal of emotionally charged myths with rigorous, informed explanations weakens the power of these tall tales and their tight hold on the sports we love. Readers will emerge with a clearer picture of the forces at work within the sports world and a better understanding of why these myths matter—and are worthy of a takedown.
Why do universities place so much emphasis on athletics? Are the salaries of head coaches excessive? Should student-athletes be paid? Why is there so much cheating in college sports? Should athletic departments be subsidized by the university? Does Title IX unfairly discriminate against men's sports? This textbook is designed to help teach students about the business of college sports, particularly the big-money sports of football and basketball, allowing them to answer these and other important questions. The book provides undergraduate students with the information and economic tools to analyze the behavior of the NCAA, athletic conferences, and individual colleges and universities in the market for college sports. Specific topics include the markets for athletes and coaches, the importance of athletics for colleges and universities, the finances of athletic departments, the influence of the media in commercializing college sports, issues of race and gender, and the possibilities for reforming college sports.
The increasing availability of data has transformed the way sports are played, promoted and managed. This is the first textbook to explain how the big data revolution is having a profound influence across the sport industry, demonstrating how sport managers and business professionals can use analytical techniques to improve their professional practice. While other sports analytics books have focused on player performance data, this book shows how analytics can be applied to every functional area of sport business, from marketing and event management to finance and legal services. Drawing on research that spans the entire sport industry, it explains how data is influencing the most important decisions, from ticket sales and human resources to risk management and facility operations. Each chapter contains real world examples, industry profiles and extended case studies which are complimented by a companion website full of useful learning resources. Sport Analytics: A data-driven approach to sport business and management is an essential text for all sport management students and an invaluable reference for any sport management professional involved in operational research.
Our view of football will never be the same again... Written by a world-respected football historian, this football history/gift title reveals the global game's greatest myths and untruths. Football has been completely mythologized and many of the things football fans think they know about football and its history turn out not to be true. We want to believe the myths, and so they become accepted. So much football writing is not properly researched, and so the myths get repeated... again and again and again. Backed up by the highest level of academic research yet written in an accessible, mass-market style, the book will explore the truth behind many accepted myths. For example, did you know: - The Germans took football to Brazil, not the English - Rugby and not football could quite easily have been the world's leading sport - There are gay professional players ....and always have been! - Goalkeepers should not dive for penalties - Football hooliganism did not begin in England - Shirt colours do make a difference - Cambridge and not Sheffield is the home of the oldest football club in the world - Arsenal should not be in the Premier League... they cheated to be there - The Dynamo Kiev team were not executed after beating a German SS team in 1941 - England did not win the World Cup fairly in 1966 ... but not in the way you think! Written by Kevin Moore, the founding director of the National Football Museum (the world's leading football museum), this thoroughly researched and authoritative book will debunk more than 50 of the greatest myths surrounding football.
The Wages of Wins is a proper analysis of the data generated by professional sports; it tells many tales that are inconsistent with the myths put forward by the media, industry, and consumers of professional sport.
As the sport business continues to evolve, so too, does Sport Finance and Management. The first version of this book took an in-depth look at changes in the sport industry, including interconnecting financial issues between teams and their associated businesses, the nature of fan loyalty influences, and the impact of sponsorship on team revenues. This second edition updates each of these elements, introduces relevant case study examples in new chapters, and examines the impact of changes in facility design, media opportunities, and league and conference policies on the economic success of teams, the salaries earned by professional players, and the finances of collegiate athletics.
The modern day youth sports environment has taken the enjoyment out of athletics for our children. Currently, 70% of kids drop out of organized sports by the age of 13, which has given rise to a generation of overweight, unhealthy young adults. There is a solution. John O’Sullivan shares the secrets of the coaches and parents who have not only raised elite athletes, but have done so by creating an environment that promotes positive core values and teaches life lessons instead of focusing on wins and losses, scholarships, and professional aspirations. Changing the Game gives adults a new paradigm and a game plan for raising happy, high performing children, and provides a national call to action to return youth sports to our kids.
A well-constructed and reasoned debunking of the mythology of amateurism in for-profit NCAA athletics For the last 60-plus-years, as the revenue-generating capacity of Power Five football and men's basketball has dramatically increased, NCAA Division I Power Five football and men's basketball players (college profit-athletes) have been economically exploited, their labor has been severely restricted. To mask this inequity, the NCAA and its members created, disseminated, and embedded a fictitious "collegiate model of athletics" established and repeatedly modified for the benefit of member schools, designed to ensure profit-athletes were denied employment status and just compensation for their athletic labor. The NCAA and the Exploitation of College Profit-Athletes: An Amateurism That Never Was provides a comprehensive historical, sociological, legal, financial, and managerial argument for the reclassification of profit-athletes as employees. Such a reclassification would permit profit-athletes to gain not only fair financial compensation but also equal access to educational benefits that have been promised but systematically denied. The authors trace how Power Five college sports have morphed into a hyper professionalized and commercialized sport–business enterprise. They provide evidence that at least since 1956 the NCAA's amateurism has been a collusive, exploitative, and racialized "pay for play" scheme that disproportionately affects Black profit-athletes. The authors cut through the institutional doublespeak of approved benefits, cost-of-attendance stipends, or name, image, likeness (NIL) collectives to lay bare the immorality of Power Five college sports. The NCAA and the Exploitation of College Profit-Athletes makes the case that profit-athletes (and their representatives) must have the right to unionize and freely negotiate a collective bargaining agreement with management (e.g., NCAA, Power Five conferences and athletic departments). In addition, this book offers a forward-thinking structure in which individual labor contracts, or a potential collective bargaining agreement, address profit-athlete compensation and working conditions.
