Economic Justification for High Salaries in Sport
Justification of the huge salaries paid to some top athletes; an economic perspective.
Over the last century there has been much research into the area of Labour Economics, and hence the determinants of supply, demand and wages for labour. In this essay, I will be looking at the unique example of the Sports Labour Market with specific focus on the European Football Market, and use various economic models to justify the huge salaries currently offered to top athletes within this field.
The wages of professional footballers have risen dramatically since the Bosman ruling in December 1995, in which EU football players were given the right to a free transfer at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they were transferring from a club within one EU Association to a club within another EU Association (European Commission, 2012).This has been supported by various studies, including (Simmons, 1997), who argued that the move towards a free agency had the consequent impact of increasing players’ salaries, as the forgone transfer fees translate into increased salaries, since the bargaining power is transferred to the player. This was reinforced by (Downward, 2000) who found that post-Bosman, the wages within the United Kingdom’s Premier League rose considerably. However, these findings conflict with other studies conducted, including (Szymanski, 1999), who argued that the new ruling only lead to increased wages for superstar players who have the greatest bargaining power, and that it did not affect the wages for the average player. During this essay I will first discuss the basic economic principles relating to the labour market, and subsequently introduce various models developed with specific focus on the sports labour market.
Demand for labour is “derived demand” because it is dependent on the demand for the final product that the labour produces (R. Sandy, 2004). The conventional model used to analyse wage determinants states that the demand for
Over the last century there has been much research into the area of Labour Economics, and hence the determinants of supply, demand and wages for labour. In this essay, I will be looking at the unique example of the Sports Labour Market with specific focus on the European Football Market, and use various economic models to justify the huge salaries currently offered to top athletes within this field.
The wages of professional footballers have risen dramatically since the Bosman ruling in December 1995, in which EU football players were given the right to a free transfer at the end of their contracts, with the provision that they were transferring from a club within one EU Association to a club within another EU Association (European Commission, 2012).This has been supported by various studies, including (Simmons, 1997), who argued that the move towards a free agency had the consequent impact of increasing players’ salaries, as the forgone transfer fees translate into increased salaries, since the bargaining power is transferred to the player. This was reinforced by (Downward, 2000) who found that post-Bosman, the wages within the United Kingdom’s Premier League rose considerably. However, these findings conflict with other studies conducted, including (Szymanski, 1999), who argued that the new ruling only lead to increased wages for superstar players who have the greatest bargaining power, and that it did not affect the wages for the average player. During this essay I will first discuss the basic economic principles relating to the labour market, and subsequently introduce various models developed with specific focus on the sports labour market.
Demand for labour is “derived demand” because it is dependent on the demand for the final product that the labour produces (R. Sandy, 2004). The conventional model used to analyse wage determinants states that the demand for
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