Journal article
The Impact of Free Agency on Competitive Balance in North American Professional Team Sports Leagues
Journal of sport management, v 20(3), pp 345-365
01 Jul 2006
Abstract
Free agency was reintroduced to professional team sport leagues in the 1970s. Sport enthusiasts expressed concern that competitive balance would diminish as star players congregated to large market cities. However, the economic invariance principle rejects this notion, indicating that balance should remain unchanged. This article empirically examines the effects of changes in free agent rules on competitive balance over time in the National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), and National Hockey League (NHL). Regression analysis using within-season and between-season measures of competitive balance as dependent variables provides mixed results. The NFL and NHL provide evidence that an aspect of competitive balance has improved, but results from the NBA indicate that balance has worsened since the introduction of free agency. We conclude that the ambiguous results suggest that the effects are not independent, but instead depend on the interaction of free agent rights with other labor market and league rules.
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Details
- Title
- The Impact of Free Agency on Competitive Balance in North American Professional Team Sports Leagues
- Creators
- Joel Maxcy - University of GeorgiaMichael Mondello - Florida State University
- Publication Details
- Journal of sport management, v 20(3), pp 345-365
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- Sport Management (Center for Sport Management)
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000239091000003
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-33745614071
- Other Identifier
- 991021881503904721
InCites Highlights
Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism
- Management
- Sport Sciences