Skip to main content
  • Book
  • © 2014

The Run to the Pennant

A Multiple Equilibria Approach to Professional Sports Leagues

  • Explores the effects of revenues that are earned at the league level (television, apparel, naming rights, etc.) that are then shared by all of the member clubs
  • Develops new models that can generate multiple equilibria and unsustainable runs
  • Employs sound empirical work using time-series methods not commonly used in the economics of sports?

Part of the book series: Sports Economics, Management and Policy (SEMP, volume 6)

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.

Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-vi
  2. Introducing Unsustainable Runs

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 1-8
  3. Casual Evidence of Unsustainable Runs

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 9-19
  4. A Model of a Professional Sports League

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 21-27
  5. A Professional League Model with Unsustainable Runs

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 29-41
  6. Unsustainable Runs with Revenue Sharing and Salary Caps

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 43-51
  7. Some Empirical Testing

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 53-65
  8. Concluding Remarks

    • Duane W. Rockerbie, Stephen T. Easton
    Pages 67-69
  9. Back Matter

    Pages 71-78

About this book

A number of clubs in professional sports leagues exhibit winning streaks over a number of consecutive seasons that do not conform to the standard economic model of a professional sports league developed by El Hodiri and Quirk (1994) and Fort and Quirk (1995). These clubs appear to display what we term "unsustainable runs", defined as a period of two to four seasons where the club acquires expensive talent and attempts to win a league championship despite not having the market size to sustain such a competitive position in the long run. The standard model predicts that clubs that locate in large economic markets will tend to acquire more talent, achieve more success on the field and at the box office than clubs that are located in small markets. This book builds a model that can allow unsustainable runs yet retains most of the features of the standard model.  The model is then subjected to empirical verification.  The new model we develop in the book has as its central feature the possibility of generating two equilibria for a club. In the empirical sections of the book, we use time-series analysis to attempt to test for the presence of unsustainable runs using historical data from National Football League (NFL), National Basketball Association (NBA), National Hockey League (NHL) and Major League Baseball (MLB).  The multiple equilibria model retains all of the features of the standard model of a professional sports league that is accepted quite universally by economists, yet it offers a much richer approach by including an exploration of the effects of revenues that are earned at the league level (television, apparel, naming rights, etc.) that are then shared by all of the member clubs, making this book unique and of great interest to scholars in a variety of fields in economics.

Authors and Affiliations

  • Department of Economics, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Canada

    Duane W Rockerbie

  • Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, Canada

    Stephen T Easton

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: The Run to the Pennant

  • Book Subtitle: A Multiple Equilibria Approach to Professional Sports Leagues

  • Authors: Duane W Rockerbie, Stephen T Easton

  • Series Title: Sports Economics, Management and Policy

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7885-0

  • Publisher: Springer New York, NY

  • eBook Packages: Business and Economics, Economics and Finance (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2014

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4614-7884-3Published: 24 July 2013

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-1-4939-5297-7Published: 01 October 2016

  • eBook ISBN: 978-1-4614-7885-0Published: 23 July 2013

  • Series ISSN: 2191-298X

  • Series E-ISSN: 2191-2998

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: VI, 78

  • Number of Illustrations: 11 b/w illustrations, 9 illustrations in colour

  • Topics: Economics, general, Econometrics, Management

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book USD 109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access