Evolutionarily Stable Strategies in Sports Contests

Martin Grossmann

No 149, Working Papers from University of Zurich, Institute for Strategy and Business Economics (ISU)

Abstract: Abstract: In the recent years, many clubs in the biggest European soccer leagues have run into debts. The sports economic literature provides several explanation for this development, e.g., the league structure (open versus closed league), club constitutions, ruinous rat races between clubs. While the majority of the articles presume the well-known Nash equilibrium concept, I apply evolutionary game theory in a sports contest model. If clubs follow evolutionarily stable strategies (ESS), then ESS generate higher investments and lower profits than predicted by Nash strategies independent of win maximizing or profit maximizing clubs. Overdissipation of the rent is possible for Nash strategies as well as for ESS.

Keywords: Contest; evolutionary stable strategies; utility maximization; team sports league (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C72 C73 D74 L13 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 2011-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gth and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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http://repec.business.uzh.ch/RePEc/iso/ISU_WPS/149_ISU_full.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Evolutionarily Stable Strategies in Sports Contests (2015)
Working Paper: Evolutionarily Stable Strategies in Sports Contests (2011)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iso:wpaper:0149

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