Who Should Own the League? Transaction Costs and the Structure of NBA Ownership

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Author(s)
Nonnenmacher, Tomas
Gerard, David
Date Issued
January 2022
Abstract
Like many professional sports leagues worldwide, the National Basketball Association is organized as a cooperative of team owners. We argue that league ownership structures must balance two types of transaction costs: the costs to league owners of collective decision-making and the costs of contracting with stakeholders of the league, importantly players, owners, and potential investors. We compare the transaction costs of the current team owned league with the alternatives of investor and player owned leagues, finding that each ownership structure reduces some transaction costs while raising others.
Journal
Journal of Sports Economics
Department
Business and Economics
Citation
Nonnenmacher, T., & Gerard, D. (2022). Who Should Own the League? Transaction Costs and the Structure of NBA Ownership. Journal of Sports Economics, 23(1), 76–94. https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025211031474
Publisher
Sage Publications
Version of Article
Published article
DOI
10.1177/15270025211031474
ISSN
1527-0025
1552-7794
Rights
© The Author(s) 2021. Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions
Subjects

Sports leagues

Cooperative organizat...

Governance

Transaction costs

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