Product Description: From the Olympics to the World Cup, mega sporting events are a source of enjoyment for tens of thousands of people, but can also be a source of intense debate and controversy. This insightful Handbook addresses a number of central questions, including: How are host cities selected and under what economic conditions? How are these events organized, and how is local resistance overcome? Based on historical and empirical experience, what are the pitfalls for the organizers of these events? What are the potential economic benefits, including any international image effects? How can the costs be minimized and the benefits maximized for host cities and countries? How do these mega events impact the challenges of globalization and what is their environmental legacy?Compiled and edited by two internationally renowned sports economists, the expert contributions elaborate on the specific mechanisms of the bid processes, analyze the determining factors of winning bids, and illustrate how to construct future bid campaigns...read more

A long time observer and critic of Milwaukee Brewers owner Bud Selig offers a balanced, insightful look at the governance of baseball before and during Selig's tumultuous reign to reveal how Selig redefined the role of commissioner and started the transformation of the baseball industry into a business.

Product Description: In The Bottom Line, one of the foremost sports economists writing today, Andrew Zimbalist (National Pastime), analyzes the net value of sports. He examines motives for why owners buy franchises, the worth of the players and the profitability of teams, and the importance of publicly funded stadiums...read more

Product Description: "The season's best book so far gets right to the heart of the game's survival at the organizational level." —The Boston Globe "A compelling examination of the national pastime as seen through the prism of the commissioner's office...read more

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Product Description: Big-time college sports embodies the ideals of amateurism and provides an important complement to university education. Or so its apologists would have us believe. As Andrew Zimbalist shows in this unprecedented analysis, college sports is really a massively commercialized industry based on activities that are often irrelevant and even harmful to education...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

America is in the midst of a sports building boom. Professional sports teams are demanding and receiving fancy new playing facilities that are heavily subsidized by government. In many cases, the rationale given for these subsidies is that attracting or retaining a professional sports franchise--even a minor league baseball team or a major league pre-season training facility--more than pays for itself in increased tax revenues, local economic development, and job creation.But are these claims true? To assess the case for subsidies, this book examines the economic impact of new stadiums and the presence of a sports franchise on the local economy. It first explores such general issues as the appropriate method for measuring economic benefits and costs, the source of the bargaining power of teams in obtaining subsidies from local government, the local politics of attracting and retaining teams, the relationship between sports and local employment, and the importance of stadium design in influencing the economic impact of a facility.The second part of the book contains case studies of major league sports facilities in Baltimore, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Indianapolis, San Francisco, and the Twin Cities, and of minor league stadiums and spring training facilities in baseball. The primary conclusions are: first, sports teams and facilities are not a source of local economic growth and employment; second, the magnitude of the net subsidy exceeds the financial benefit of a new stadium to a team; and, third, the most plausible reasons that cities are willing to subsidize sports teams are the intense popularity of sports among a substantial proportion of voters and businesses and the leverage that teams enjoy from the monopoly position of professional sports leagues.

A look at the finances of big-time American baseball reveals the inside track on the fortunes being made in the sport

An analysis of the finances of the national pastime reveals the inside track on the fortunes being made in baseball. Book available.

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