The Politics of Sports: Introduction to the Special Issue

Excerpt

Sports at all levels involves interesting governance issues. Sports involves many types of organizations including corporations, privately held companies, nonprofit organizations and international organizations. Sport contains many examples of the private provision of public goods. For example, games played by professional and college sports teams have some aspects of public goods. Local public policies, for example the subsidization of professional sports facilities, directly involve sport and represent important national issues. Organizational outcomes in sport can be readily observed and quantified facilitating empirical analysis. These aspects of sport make the topic an excellent fit for Economics of Governance, which motivates this special issue on the Politics of Sports. …