In basketball, a point scored on offense carries a nearly identical on-court (win) value as a point denied on defense (e.g. within the Pythagorean expected wins model). Both outcomes bear the same score margin implication. As such, a win-maximizing team is expected to value the two outcomes equally. We ask whether the salaries of NBA players reveal such an equality among NBA teams. If not, a win-maximizing team would enjoy a disequilibrium arbitrage opportunity, whereby the team could improve, in expectation, even while reducing roster payroll. We considered the 322 National Basketball Association (NBA) players during the 2016–2017 season who were on a full-season contract for which the salary was not stipulated under the NBA Collective Bargaining Agreement. We estimated the implied marginal wage of an additional point created on offense (denied on defense) per 100 possessions. Namely, we constructed a set of fixed effects, ordinary least squares regression models that specify a player’s pre-assigned 2016–2017 player salary as a function of primary team fixed effects, offensive adjusted plus minus, defensive adjusted plus minus, position-of-play, and control variables such as age. We conclude that a win-maximizing NBA team currently faces a substantial arbitrage opportunity. Namely, one unit of offense carries the same estimated implicit salary as approximately two and a half to four units of defense. We also find moderate between-team variation in adjusted plus minus return on payroll allocations.

IMPORTANCE Long-term adverse health outcomes, particularly those associated with repetitive head impacts, are of growing concern among US-style football players in the US and Canada. OBJECTIVE To assess whether exposure to repetitive head impacts during a professional football career is associated with an increase in the risk of all-cause mortality.

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In general, National Football League (NFL) players tend to live longer than the general population. However, little information exists about the long-term mortality risk in this population. Frequent, yet mild, head trauma may be associated with early mortality in this group of elite athletes. Therefore, career playing statistics can be used as a proxy for frequent head trauma. Using data from Pro Football Reference, we analyzed the association between age-at-death, position, and NFL seasons-played among 6,408 NFL players that were deceased as of July 1, 2018. The linear regression model allowing for a healthy worker effect demonstrated the best fit statistics (F-statistic = 9.95, p-value = 0.0016). The overall association of age-at-death and seasons-played is positive beginning at the 10.75 and 10.64 seasons-played point in our two models that feature seasons-played and seasons-played squared as explanatory variables. Previous research that does not account for the healthy worker effect may not adequately describe mortality risk among NFL players.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to analyze how the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) countermeasures will affect the financing of the North American leagues. In particular, we focus on the missed revenue from gate receipts for the Big Four leagues.Design/methodology/approachThe authors forecast the 2020 revenue for each of the four major leagues under two scenarios: (1) expected revenue under the normal conditions of fans in attendance and (2) expected revenues in the absence of fans due to the countermeasures in place. Then, the authors calculate the loss in gate receipts as a difference in the revenue under fans and no-fans scenarios.FindingsBased on the current estimates, the combined financial loss of the clubs from NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL is expected to be above 6.8bn dollars in gate receipts alone.Practical implicationsThe findings are useful to the league management to prepare for the suboptimal financial situation.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that explores the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic across the major league sports leagues in North America.