Diamonds Are Forever: The Business of Baseball

America's favourite pastime is also big business. The last 15 years have been exceptionally good to the business of baseball - with the growth in fan attendance, the spread of cable television, the burgeoning interest in cards and other baseball memorabilia, the historical appreciation of franchise values, the emergence of a powerful players' union, and average salaries that are almost 20 times their pre-1976 levels. Yet at this time of prosperity, major economic issues trouble the sport: the threat of franchise relocation, the continual flash points in collective bargaining, the growing commercialization of the game, the club owners' collusive response to free agency, lingering concerns of race discrimination and the arguably tenuous link between player pay and performance. This book examines these and other major issues and assesses their probable impact on the business of baseball. It looks at the player's labour market; the impact of fans; pay performance, and competitive balance; and the influence of race on salaries. These papers were originally presented at the annual Middlebury College conference on economic issues in 1991. The contributors are Paul L. Burgess, George G. Daly, Rodney D. Fort, David M. Federick, Bruce K. Johnson, William H. Kaempfer, Lawrence M. Kahn, Daniel R. Merburger, Philip K. Porter, David J. Salant, John A. Vernon, Richard L. Wobbekind and Andrew Zimbaliist.