Symposium: Economic and Financial Aspects of Professional Team Sports

This symposium focuses on research on the economic and financial aspects of professional team sports in North American sports leagues. The papers represent a comprehensive look at the cutting edge of economic and financial research on professional sports teams. Topics covered in the symposium include operational aspects of teams and managers, operational aspects of leagues, the impact of customers ' preferences on team finances, and financial aspects of teams. All of the papers approach the topic from the perspective of economic analysis. The theoretical motivation of all four papers is neoclassical economic theories of rational utility maximizing households and profit maximizing firms. The papers all contain empirical analysis of the economic and financial performance of professional sports teams. The papers all shed new light on the operation of professional sports teams and leagues from an economic perspective. The papers will be of interest to academics in sport management and practitioners working in the professional sports industry and financial markets related to professional sports, as well as students