Professional team sports are only a game: The Walrasian fixed-supply conjecture model, contest-nash equilibrium, and the invariance principle

This article explores the standard 2-team model of talent choice in a professional sports league and argues that the application of Nash concepts leads to a different equilibrium than that which is normally identified. In particular, it is shown that the invariance princi-ple for gate-revenue sharing no longer holds. Because the standard model, which is here called the Walrasian fixed-supply conjecture model, is widely taught in sports manage-ment and economics programs, these finding have important implications for teachers as well as researchers