Hard Ball
As important as it is depressing,Hard Balltakes a serious look at how professional sports in America has fans and communities in a vise grip. Salaries are out of control. Labor disputes and contract renegotiations are reported next to the standings. Corporate boxes and sponsorships determine the fate of stadiums. Owners hold cities hostage. In an arena in which teams are obsessed with profits over championships, bottom lines over win-loss records, and market bases over fan loyalties, the games themselves are really secondary, at best.A pair of economists, Quirk and Fort explore the ways the major sports--baseball, football, basketball, and hockey--have changed the way they do business in the last half of the 20th century as the balance of financial power has shifted overwhelmingly to the individual league monopolies: "... the market power of leagues enables them to capture the great bulk of the monopoly profits ... from gate receipts, media income, sweetheart stadium deals and rental arrangements, and other sources. These monopoly profits in turn become the prize package over which owners and players, who are backed by their player unions, fight." In any other industry, the authors contend, these monopolies would have long ago been banged around by Congress, and, indeed, they argue quite forcefully for their breakups. Neither their diagnosis of disease nor their prescription for cure are new. Still, what makesHard Ballsadly necessary is how clearly and completely Quirk and Fort make their case that, for the good of sports, something's gotta give.--Jeff Silverman