An Examination of Luxury Suite Ownership in Professional Sports

Confronting the Problems of Professional Sports: A Public Policy Response to Franchise Relocation and Stadium Subsidization

Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal ◽

10.15695/vurj.v1i0.2723 ◽

2005 ◽

Vol 1 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Taylor F Brinkman

Keyword(s):

Local Community ◽

Professional Sports ◽

The United States ◽

Direct Result ◽

Sports Organizations ◽

Sports Leagues ◽

Sports Finance ◽

Sports Venues ◽

Benefits And Costs

During the past decade, forty-six professional sports venues were constructed in the United States, while only 16 expansion teams were created by the major sports leagues. Nearly two thirds of these newly built stadiums and arenas were funded with public tax revenues, despite substantial evidence showing no positive economic impact of new sports stadium construction on local communities. In reviewing the economic literature, this article investigates the role of professional sports organizations in the construction and public subsidization of new sports venues. Franchise relocation and public stadium subsidization is a direct result of the monopoly power of professional sports leagues, whose franchise owners extract large subsidies from their host communities by threatening to relocate to viable alternative locations. After explaining how the most common methods of stadium subsidization project a disproportionate allocation of the benefits and costs of hosting a professional team to local community interests, this article outlines several considerations for local policymakers who seek to reinvigorate public discussion of equity concerns in professional sports finance.

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The National Association of Professional Base Ball Players: The Origins of Professional Baseball and the American Identity

Vanderbilt Undergraduate Research Journal ◽

10.15695/vurj.v8i0.3522 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 8 ◽

Author(s):

Eric Rosenberg

Keyword(s):

New York ◽

Professional Sports ◽

The United States ◽

American Identity ◽

National Association ◽

American Values ◽

Primary Documents ◽

American Tradition ◽

Formative Experience ◽

The 19Th Century

Baseball has been proudly coined “the national pastime” for nearly its entire existence. The sport evolved from several English bat and ball games and quickly became part of the American identity in the 19th century. Only a few decades after the first baseball club formed in New York City, amateur clubs began to organize into loose confederations as competition and glory entered a game originally associated with fraternal leisure. Soon after, clubs with enough fans and capital began to pay players for their services and by 1871 and league of solely professionals emerged. Known as The National Professional Base Ball Players Association, this league would only last five seasons but would lay the groundwork for the American tradition of professional sports that exists today. In this paper, I analyze the development of the sport of baseball into a professional industry alongside the concurrent industrialization and urbanization of the United States. I used primary documents from the era describing the growing popularity of the sport as well as modern historians’ accounts of early baseball. In addition, I rely on sources focusing on the changing American identity during this period known as The Gilded Age, which many attribute to be the beginnings of the modern understanding of American values. Ultimately, I conclude that baseball’s progression into a professional league from grassroots origins compared to a broader trend of the ideal American being viewed as urban, skilled, and affluent despite the majority not able to fit this characterization. How certain attributes become inherent to a group identity and the types of individuals able to communicate these messages are also explored. My analysis of the National Association of Professional Base Ball Players provides insight on the formative experience of the modern collective American identity and baseball’s place in it as our national pastime.

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