Sports Economics

The course covers the main features of sports economics. The contents comprise the understanding of sports as an economy, characteristics of sport product, the behaviour of leagues and clubs, the main differences between North-American and European sport systems, sport league designs, players’ labour market, the demand for sports and the competitive balance. Fundamentally, they key learning outcomes of the course refer to understanding the contributions from the key literature on this field and their both theoretical and practical applications.

Course Content

TOPIC 1. Sport as an economy This topic comprises the general features that make a sport an economy, like sport product, competition and resource allocation.
TOPIC 2. Leagues and clubs This topic covers some concepts like the design of sport leagues and the key differences between North-American and European systems.
TOPIC 3. Labour Market This topic embraces some characteristics of the professional players’ labour market, such as their revenues, allocation of talent and transfer fees.
TOPIC 4. Competitive Balance This topic includes the essential aspects related to competitive balance in sport leagues and tournaments.
TOPIC 5. Demand This topic comprises the essential literature regarding tickets demand as well as broadcast demand on professional sports.

Teaching

The course includes traditional lecture-segment, case studies, group projects, and study visit.The final assessment will be done upon a presentation of the course project and written essay.

Entrance requirements

This course is oriented to Bachelor, Master and PhD students interested in Sports Economics. Any previous knowledge in the topic is required. Basic/intermediate knowledge in statistics is welcome, but it is not mandatory. Students might bring their personal laptop.

Learning Outcome

Upon the course completion you will be able

• to understand the core concepts of sports economics;
• to understand sports as a peculiar economy
• to comprehend the habitual methods used on sports economics;
• to demonstrate knowledge in sport leagues designs;
• to comprehend competitive balance and its implications on demand, labour market and sport policies.