scholarly journals Sports Television and the Continuing Search for Alternative Programming

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 566-574
Author(s):  
Branden Buehler
Keyword(s):  
Finite Number ◽  
National Football League ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Television Industry

The American sports television industry has scrambled to adjust to the loss of live sporting events in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic—a scramble clearly evidenced in programming schedules suddenly filled with replays of older event telecasts. However, rather than focusing on the apparent novelty of this type of substitute coronavirus programming, this article, instead, argues that the loss of live sporting events represents the amplification of a problem that television networks have already been grappling with for years: how to fill an ever greater number of outlets with sufficient year-round programming given a finite number of live events. With that in mind, this article proposes that many of the programming strategies that networks have turned to in the midst of the pandemic, including the expanded coverage of transactions (e.g., coverage of National Football League free agency) and the increased scheduling of documentaries (e.g., The Last Dance), have been familiar extensions of previously established alternative programming solutions.

scholarly journals Sports Television and the Continuing Search for Alternative Programming

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Branden Buehler
Keyword(s):  
Sporting Events ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Television Industry ◽  
Finite Amount

The American sports television industry has scrambled to adjust to the loss of live sporting events in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic – a scramble clearly evidenced in programming schedules suddenly filled with replays of older event telecasts. However, rather than focus on the apparent novelty of this type of substitute coronavirus programming, this article instead argues that the loss of live sporting events represents the amplification of a problem television networks have already been grappling with for years: how to fill an ever greater number of outlets with sufficient year-round programming given a finite amount of live events. That in mind, this article proposes that many of the programming strategies that networks have turned to in the midst of the pandemic, including the expanded coverage of transactions (e.g. coverage of NFL free agency) and the increased scheduling of documentaries (e.g. The Last Dance), have been familiar extensions of previously established alternative programming solutions.

A Brief History of Professional Team Sports

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David George Surdam
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Football League ◽  
Team Sports ◽  
Court Case ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Congressional Hearings ◽  
Professional Team Sports ◽  
Supreme Court Case ◽  
History Of ◽  
National League

This chapter traces the history of professional team sports in order to place the issues covered in the Congressional hearings in the proper context. It first considers the rise of baseball as America's national pastime and Major League Baseball (MLB)'s decision to maintain two separate leagues, the American League and the National League. It then discusses the dispute between MLB and the rival Federal League, along with the emergence of other sports that achieved Big League status, namely, football and basketball. It also examines the prosperity of the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) as well as the appearance of new challengers to their dominance after World War II. Finally, it looks at the Flood v. Kuhn, a Supreme Court case that challenged baseball's reserve clause, along with the rise of free agency.

Free agency, owner incentives, and the national football league players association

1983 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Frank A. Scott ◽  
James E. Long ◽  
Ken Somppi
Keyword(s):  
National Football League ◽  
Free Agency

The Impact of Free Agency on Competitive Balance in North American Professional Team Sports Leagues

2006 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 345-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Maxcy ◽  
Michael Mondello
Keyword(s):  
National Football League ◽  
Team Sports ◽  
National Hockey League ◽  
Competitive Balance ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Free Agent ◽  
Professional Team Sports ◽  
Dependent Variables ◽  
Sports Leagues ◽  
The Impact

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.

Demand, Attendance, and Censoring

2012 ◽  
pp. 189-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin B. Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
National Football League ◽  
Capacity Constraints ◽  
Quality Data ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Estimation Technique ◽  
High Quality ◽  
High Quality Data

This article addresses the censoring of the data that comes about because of capacity constraints on game-day attendance. Using high-quality data about National Football League (NFL) attendance, it explores why and shows how a Tobit estimation technique is superior to OLS for testing propositions about price and demand shift variables in the context of the demand to attend sporting events. The OLS results are almost uniformly lower, in absolute terms, than those produced when the censoring is explicitly recognized. In addition, the marginal significance of several of the variables differs across the two. It is found that game-day attendance in the NFL depends negatively on time and positively on the perceived competitiveness and scoring output of the game. It also increases when the team plays a division rival or when the game is played on Thanksgiving.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Sporting Events

2014 ◽  
pp. 88-102
Author(s):  
Samuel M. Bradley
Keyword(s):  
Corporate Social Responsibility ◽  
Social Responsibility ◽  
National Football League ◽  
Major League Baseball ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Business Organizations ◽  
Socially Responsible ◽  
Responsible Behavior ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
English Premier League

All businesses are expected to behave in socially responsible ways. These responsibilities include ethical treatment of employees and all stakeholders, addressing environmental issues in a sustainable manor, and contributing to the community. Corporate social responsibility is not just a concern for the manufacturers of products, but extends to all business organizations including professional teams and sporting organizations. The chapter discusses the importance of corporate socially responsible behavior and then focuses on the importance of such behavior by sporting teams and organizations. A specific discussion is presented about the responsible social behavior undertaken by the National Football League, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, Formula I racing, FIFA, the English Premier League, and the Olympic Games.

Professional Team Sports in the United States

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven A. Riess
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
National Football League ◽  
Team Sports ◽  
The United States ◽  
Employee Relations ◽  
Free Agency ◽  
Successful Operation ◽  
Sports Teams ◽  
Professional Team Sports ◽  
Set Up

Professional sports teams are athletic organizations comprising talented, expert players hired by club owners whose revenues originally derived from admission fees charged to spectators seeing games in enclosed ballparks or indoor arenas. Teams are usually members of a league that schedules a championship season, although independent teams also can arrange their own contests. The first professional baseball teams emerged in the east and Midwest in 1860s, most notably the all-salaried undefeated Cincinnati Red Stockings of 1869. The first league was the haphazardly organized National Association of Professional Base Ball Players (1871), supplanted five years later by the more profit-oriented National League (NL) that set up strict rules for franchise locations, financing, and management–employee relations (including a reserve clause in 1879, which bound players to their original employer), and barred African Americans after 1884. Once the NL prospered, rival major leagues also sprang up, notably the American Association in 1882 and the American League in 1901. Major League Baseball (MLB) became a model for the professionalization of football, basketball, and hockey, which all had short-lived professional leagues around the turn of the century. The National Football League and the National Hockey League of the 1920s were underfinanced regional operations, and their teams often went out of business, while the National Basketball Association was not even organized until 1949. Professional team sports gained considerable popularity after World War II. The leagues dealt with such problems as franchise relocations and nationwide expansion, conflicts with interlopers, limiting player salaries, and racial integration. The NFL became the most successful operation by securing rich national television contracts, supplanting baseball as the national pastime in the 1970s. All these leagues became lucrative investments. With the rise of “free agency,” professional team athletes became extremely well paid, currently averaging more than $2 million a year.

Risk Aversion and Rent-Seeking Redistributions: Free Agency in the National Football League

1990 ◽  
Vol 57 (1) ◽  
pp. 114 ◽  
Author(s):  
John A. Bishop ◽  
J. Howard Finch ◽  
John P. Formby
Keyword(s):  
Risk Aversion ◽  
National Football League ◽  
Rent Seeking ◽  
Free Agency

The Impact of National Anthem Protests on National Football League Television Ratings

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (8) ◽  
pp. 829-847
Author(s):  
Judah Brown ◽  
Brandon J. Sheridan
Keyword(s):  
National Football League ◽  
Sporting Events ◽  
Detailed Data ◽  
National Anthem ◽  
Tv Ratings ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Television Ratings

The National Football League’s (NFL) television ratings decreased by approximately 8% during the 2016 season, then a further 10% the following season. These declines coincided with league-wide national anthem protests initiated by Colin Kaepernick at the beginning of the 2016 season. Existing research identifies many determinants of demand for sporting events, but athletes’ protests are seldom considered. We use detailed data on players’ protests and television ratings to construct a new, game-level panel for the four NFL seasons between 2014 and 2017. Our results show protests are statistically significantly associated with lower TV ratings, but the economic magnitude is relatively muted.

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