The Hidden Side of Sport

[switchskier]

Does anyone listen to the weekly freakonomics podcast? They're done ng a series at the minute called 'The Hidden side of sport' which is fascinating. Lots of high level stars and sport executives mixed in with the odd economist. A few highlights for me so far:

1. The entire US sports industry is around the same economic size as the US cardboard box industry

2. Sports teams are not normal businesses. Collusion is more profitable than putting your rivals out of business (an obvious point but one missed all too often)

3. In the NFL the players are pretty much incidental to running a successful business. With $200m coming from the league and a major asset (a stadium) success on the field doesn't really matter that much.

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/sports-ep-2/

[rowan]

No surprises there. American professional sports has always been run strictly as a business. I had a look at some of the transcripts and just read like a bunch of random anecdotes. I'll try to get around to listening to the podcast at some stage.

Incidentally, the NFL is a good model for domestic competitions and even Super Rugby and European club competition. It's not applicable to international rugby, which has a mandate to expand globally, which requires certain sacrifices.

[rowan]

Listened to it now, mildly interesting (for NFL fans) but basically all over the place. More time spent on Colin Kaepernick's kneel, Kyle Shanahan's coaching and some NFL lineman's terrible rendition of Hakuna Matata than there was on the business side of the NFL, so far as I could tell.