Managerial Economics & Organizational Architecture 6th Edition by James Brickley , Clifford Smith ,Jerold Zimmerman

Exercise 37

In certain professional sports, team owners "own" the players. Owners can sell or trade players to another team. However, players are not free to negotiate with other team owners on their own behalf. The team owners initially obtain the rights to players through an annual draft that is used to allocate new players among the teams in the league. They can also obtain the rights to players by purchasing them from another team. Players do not like this process and often argue that they should be free to negotiate with all teams in the sporting league. In this case, they would be free to play for the team that offers the most desirable contract. Owners argue that this change in rights would have a negative effect on the distribution of talent across teams. In particular, they argue that all the good players would end up on rich, media-center teams such as New York or Los Angeles (because these teams could afford to pay higher salaries). The inequity of players across teams would make the sport less interesting to fans and thus destroy the league. Do you think the owners' argument is correct Explain.