Hard Ball - Hardcover

Quirk, James P.; Fort, Rodney D.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0691058172 ISBN 13: 9780691058177

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 1999

Synopsis

What can possibly account for the strange state of affairs in professional sports today? There are billionaire owners and millionaire players, but both groups are constantly squabbling over money. Many pro teams appear to be virtual "cash machines," generating astronomical annual revenues, but their owners seem willing to uproot them and move to any city willing to promise increased profits. At the same time, mayors continue to cook up "sweetheart deals" that lavish benefits on wealthy teams while imposing crushing financial hardships on cities that are already strapped with debt. To fans today, professional sports teams often look more like professional extortionists.

In Hard Ball, James Quirk and Rodney Fort take on a daunting challenge: explaining exactly how things have gotten to this point and proposing a way out. Both authors are professional economists who specialize in the economics of sports. Their previous book, Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Team Sports, is widely acknowledged as the Bible of sports economics. Here, however, they are writing for sports fans who are trying to make sense out of the perplexing world of pro team sports. It is not money, in itself, that is the cause of today's problems, they assert. In fact, the real problem stems from one simple fact: pro sports are monopolies that are fully sanctioned by the U.S. government. Eliminate the monopolies, say Quirk and Fort, and all problems can be solved. If the monopolies are allowed to persist, so will today's woes.

The authors discuss all four major pro team sports: baseball, football, basketball, and hockey. Hard Ball is filled with anecdotes, case studies, and factual information that are brought together here for the first time. Quirk and Fort devote chapters to the main protagonists in the pro sports saga--media, unions, players, owners, politicians, and leagues--before they offer their own prescription for correcting the ills that afflict sports today. The result is an engaging and persuasive book that is sure to be widely read, cited, and debated. It is essential reading for every fan.

About this title

Review

As important as it is depressing, Hard Ball takes a serious look at how professional sports in America has fans and communities in a vise grip. Salaries are out of control. Labor disputes and contract renegotiations are reported next to the standings. Corporate boxes and sponsorships determine the fate of stadiums. Owners hold cities hostage. In an arena in which teams are obsessed with profits over championships, bottom lines over win-loss records, and market bases over fan loyalties, the games themselves are really secondary, at best.

A pair of economists, Quirk and Fort explore the ways the major sports--baseball, football, basketball, and hockey--have changed the way they do business in the last half of the 20th century as the balance of financial power has shifted overwhelmingly to the individual league monopolies: "... the market power of leagues enables them to capture the great bulk of the monopoly profits ... from gate receipts, media income, sweetheart stadium deals and rental arrangements, and other sources. These monopoly profits in turn become the prize package over which owners and players, who are backed by their player unions, fight." In any other industry, the authors contend, these monopolies would have long ago been banged around by Congress, and, indeed, they argue quite forcefully for their breakups. Neither their diagnosis of disease nor their prescription for cure are new. Still, what makes Hard Ball sadly necessary is how clearly and completely Quirk and Fort make their case that, for the good of sports, something's gotta give. --Jeff Silverman

From the Back Cover

"Hard Ball is attractive because it is a clearly and compellingly written book about a topic near and dear to the hearts of millions of Americans. It explains the fundamental economic causes of the nasty problems afflicting pro sports leagues in the waning days of the twentieth century. The audience is the smart fan who wants help in understanding why off-the-field problems so often overshadow the competition on the field."--Bruce K. Johnson, Centre College

"Hard Ball is a very fun read and delivers good economics in a remarkably painless way."--Bruce W. Hamilton, Johns Hopkins University

Edition details

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 0691058172
• ISBN 13: 9780691058177
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 248