The Economic Design of Sporting Contests

The contest design approach is applied in an effort to systematize the contribution of economic thinking to design issues in sports and to relate this research to the expanding empirical literature on sports. Designing an optimal sporting contest is a matter of significant financial concern for the organizers, participating individuals, and teams, as well as being a matter of tremendous personal interest for millions of fans. The review deals primarily with the commercialized modern sports, almost all of which were formalized between 1840 and 1900, following on from the regularization inherent in industrialization and urbanization. It is concluded that economists are not yet able to fully model and test an optimal design of a sporting contest, but that such a project is within the capabilities of the profession. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]