The Economics of Baseball 
Eco 383
Fall 2008
Prof. Ranjit Dighe

My office hours:  MW 2:30-3:30, Tu 4-5, in Mahar 450

Bill Boyd's tutoring hours for principles of economics:  M 4-5:50 in Mahar 202, W 4-5:50 in Mahar 220, Th 12:45-2:45 in Mahar 216

baseball money Required texts (available at The College Store and Kraftees):
  • Andrew Zimbalist.  May the Best Team Win: Baseball Economics and Public Policy.  Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 2004.
  • J.C. Bradbury.  The Baseball Economist: The Real Game Exposed.  New York: Dutton/Penguin, 2007.
  • Forbes magazine.  Special baseball issue, 2008.
  • Eco 383 course reading packet.

PowerPoint slides from the lectures:
Coming soon.  The ones below are from Fall 2007:

(If you cannot view PowerPoint slides on your computer, you can download a PowerPoint viewer through the College's technical support page.)

Featured baseball/economics columns (optional reading):
* Jim Caple of ESPN.com (aided by a lot of quotes from Ball Four author Jim Bouton) says Marvin Miller belongs in the Hall of Fame
* Michael Lewis of Washington University says MLB's revenue-sharing plan has backfired and says he's got a better alternative ("Baseball's Losing Formula," New York Times, 3 Nov. 2007).
* Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated has a great idea about how to tweak MLB's wild-card system to make the game's playoff races more meaningful, which could only help the demand for the game down the stretch ("Pure Fiction: Debunking the Biggest Myths of MLB's Wild-Card Era," SI.com, 25 Sept. 2007).

Review of economic principles (goes with early lectures)
-- Alas, these notes do not include graphs.  Below, however, are some related notes, courtesy of Prof. John Kane, with multicolor graphics.  One would do well to take a look at these, too:
---- * Notes on supply, demand, pricing, and profits in a perfectly competitive market
---- * Notes on monopoly pricing and the dead-weight loss from monopoly
         (See especially the "Comparison of perfect competition and monopoly.")

For the attendance-regression assignment:  a very helpful and readable guide to running two-variable regressions in Excel, from an econ professor at UC-Davis

The current syllabus is not online.  Anyone curious to see an old syllabus can check out my Fall 2002 or Fall 2001 syllabus.

Some baseball links that may prove helpful in researching your debate topics (though keep in mind that they are complements to, not substitutes for, the course textbooks and reading packet):
* The Sabernomics blog, by J.C. Bradbury, author of The Baseball Economist
* The Sports Economist blog touches on nearly every topic we cover in this class
* The Biz of Baseball might be the most comprehensive website about the baseball business
* Forbes.com has key financial estimates for every major-league team
* Team Marketing Report:  average ticket prices and "Fan Cost Index" for teams in MLB and other sports leagues
* ESPN baseball news
* CNN / Sports Illustrated baseball news
* The Baseball Archive's "Business of Baseball" page -- includes comprehensive team financial info for 1990-96
* Lexis-Nexis Academic Universe -- full-text articles from hundreds of newspapers and magazines
* Google.com gets my vote for best Internet search engine

Some more baseball links:
* Sports Business Journal
* Chris Isidore's "Sportsbiz" column on the CNN/Money magazine web site
* Field of Schemes thinks stadiums are lousy public investments, but keeps close tabs on them
* Baseball Prospectus: Stats, Analysis, Commentary, and Projections
* Baseball Hall of Fame
* Major League Baseball
* John Skilton's Baseball Links
* Baseball America magazine
* Birds in the Belfry: a Baltimore Orioles fan site

Last revised on 4 September 2008