Crime and Punishment in the National Basketball Association

David J. Berri () and Ryan M. Rodenberg ()
Additional contact information
David J. Berri: Southern Utah University
Ryan M. Rodenberg: Florida State University

Chapter Chapter 5 in Violence and Aggression in Sporting Contests, 2011, pp 65-76 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter investigates the overlap between National Basketball Association (NBA) referees, the league’s on-court rule enforcers, and the impact of player violence and aggression on individual salary, team wins, and team revenue. The authors’ meta-analysis highlights emerging research on the role of referees in regulating the sport and describes systematic referee bias in connection with race, league profits, and social pressure in the literature. More narrowly, and in contrast to several high-profile media reports, the authors unearth little to no evidence of NBA referees being biased against specific players, coaches, or team owners. With personal fouls as a proxy for player-level aggression, the analysis finds that players who commit more fouls earn lower salaries and hurt their respective team’s chances of winning. Using the high-profile example of Shaquille O’Neal, the authors also demonstrate how O’Neal’s inability to make free throws had a detrimental impact on how many wins he helped produce for his team and a negative effect on his team’s revenue. Such results reveal the overlapping tension between the NBA’s player discipline protocol, efforts toward referee consistency, and certain marketing and public relation goals the league may have.

Keywords: National Basketball Association; Regular Season; Shoot Efficiency; Productive Player; Aggressive Play (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:semchp:978-1-4419-6630-8_5

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9781441966308

DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4419-6630-8_5

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Sports Economics, Management, and Policy from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().