Sports Economics (EC 370.01 – Spring 2009)
O’Neil 253: T Th (9 – 10:15)
Christopher Maxwell Office:
maxwellc@bc.edu
http://www.cmaxxsports.com Hrs: T 2-3:30 and by appt.
617-244-5118
Course Description: This
applied economics course explores various aspects of the economics of sports
and sports leagues, with a focus on empirical analysis. We will consider a number of topics, including
the business and economics of professional team sports and sports broadcasting,
analysis of competitive balance policies, player relations issues including
analysis of the drivers of players' salaries, the public finance aspects of
sports teams and stadium financing, antitrust issues, and issues in collegiate
sports. A term-long empirical research
project is an important part of the course. This is not a sports history or trivia class.
Prerequisites: EC201 or EC203, and EC151 or EC155. This course makes extensive use of Excel. You should not take this course if you do not
have strong Excel skills. Statistical
languages such as Stata,
While EC228 is not required, it
is advisable. Students are expected to
know how to run simple econometric models. This course is not open to students who have
taken a Sports Economics course abroad.
Office Hours: Tuesday 3-4:30
and by arrangement
Required Textbook:
(Available
at the bookstore; will be placed on reserve at O’Neill.)
Useful Websites: to name a few (you will find the first two
especially useful)
Optional Books:
Grading Breakdown:
There
are no exams in this course.
Important Dates:
·
Tues, Feb 10: Term paper prospectus due (one-two
pages: topic, literature review (one paper in detail), and data sources);
presentations (move fast)
·
Tues, Mar 17: Term paper updates – progress
report; some results presented
BlackboardVista: Everything
distributed in class will eventually be posted on the course’s BlackboardVista
site. In addition you’ll find a large
amount of data and additional material posted there. Let me know if you have trouble accessing
that material.
Academic Integrity: The Deans have
requested that I remind you that you will be held to
Term Papers: The term paper is an empirical
project and counts towards 40% of your course grade. Term papers should have six parts:
There
is no page requirement, though it is hard to do a good job covering all of
these dimensions of the assignment without writing at least 12-15 pages. Empirical work is slow going. Be sure to leave yourself enough time to
complete the assignment to your satisfaction.
Term
papers submitted by April 16 will be graded and returned by Monday Apr 27th.. Students may then revise these papers if they
wish. All term papers are due by May 11.
This
is an Economics course. Papers that are
merely sabermetric exercises will not receive a grade above B+.
The
Exercises:
The course is structured around a set of empirical
exercises, which count towards 40% of your course grade. These will typically (but not always) be team assignments (with 2-3 students per team) and
will be graded. Teams will be assigned
in class. Most Exercises will divide into
two parts, so that something is due almost every week (Thursday will be Exercise
Day). No late work accepted (low
score dropped in determining your course grade). If we do not get through as many exercises as
anticipated, the course grade weights may be changed. Final grades on Exercises are curved. The Exercises:
Other possible exercises:
Tuesday
Talks: Every Tuesday, we’ll devote
the first 10 minutes or so of class time to a discussion of a current relevant
issue. The discussion will be led by a team
of two-to-three students (team assignments will be distributed on Tuesday Jan
27th). The team leading the
discussion may want to distribute a brief set of “talking points” (five bullet
points max) to guide and focus the discussion. To provide a sense of what’s expected, I’ll do
the first two presentations on Jan 20th and Jan 27th.
NCAAB
Points Competition: More details to follow, but
briefly: The challenge in this
competition is to build a forecasting model that best predicts points scored by
NCAA DI men’s basketball teams over the course of the 2008-2009 season, and in
particular, in the post-season.
Predictions are out-of-sample, so models are based on results up
to some point in time and forecasts are for games after that point in time.
Teams
will be assigned on Thursday Feb 5th. In the first week of the competition, models
will be estimated on results from games played through Monday Feb 9th. The estimated models will then be used to
forecast results for the following week (beginning Tues Feb 10th and
ending Mon Feb 16th). Results
will then be presented in class on Tues, Feb 17th. This process is subsequently repeated two more
times (models revised; new forecasts generated for the week ahead), with
presentations on Tues Feb 24th and Tues Mar 10th (welcome
back from Spring Break!). I will be
working along side you and reporting as well on my efforts and success along
the way.
In
the weekly updates, teams will reveal their sum squared forecasting error (SSE)
for the week being estimated and to some extent, the nature of their model (in
wk one of the competition, their two most significant explanatory variables; in
wk two, their three most significant explanatory variables; and in wk three,
their four most significant explanatory variables). On March 17th, teams will provide
forecasts for the first two rounds of the NCAA tournament (played Mar 19 – 22);
on March 24th they do the same for rounds three and four (played Mar
26-29); and again for the final two rounds, submitting final forecasts on Mar
31st.
Final
presentations will be on Tuesday April 7th (the day after the NCAA
Final). The winning team will receive a
prize! Grades will be determined by the
ratio of my SSE to your team’s SSE for scores during the NCAA tournament (grades
will be capped at 100%).
NCAAB Milestones:
Feb 5 (Th): Teams assigned
Feb 17 (Tu): Report #1
Feb 24 (Tu): Report #2
Mar 10 (Tu): Report #3
Apr 7 (Tu): Presentations & Awards