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Stadiums and Scheduling: Measuring Deadweight Losses in the Victorian Football League, 1920–70
Author(s) -
Frost Lionel,
Borrowman Luc,
Halabi Abdel K.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
australian economic history review
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.493
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1467-8446
pISSN - 0004-8992
DOI - 10.1111/aehr.12132
Subject(s) - league , football , stadium , counterfactual thinking , welfare , cartel , deadweight loss , economics , advertising , labour economics , business , political science , microeconomics , market economy , law , mathematics , collusion , psychology , physics , astronomy , social psychology , geometry
Over a 50 year period, Australian Rules football's major league, the Victorian Football League, did not always use its largest and best‐equipped stadium for regular season games between its most popular teams or schedule those teams to play twice in a regular season. We calculate deadweight losses from the use of capital goods (stadiums) and effects of match scheduling in this professional sports league. Such analysis has not been attempted previously because of the absence of a counterfactual. The welfare losses were significant but not sufficient to threaten the survival of a distance‐protected cartel.