Superstars and Journeymen: An Analysis of National Football Team’s Allocation of the Salary Cap across Rosters, 2000-2005

Kevin Quinn, Melissa Geier and Anne Berkovitz
Additional contact information
Kevin Quinn: St. Nobert College
Melissa Geier: St. Nobert College
Anne Berkovitz: St. Nobert College

No 722, Working Papers from International Association of Sports Economists, North American Association of Sports Economists

Abstract: The National Football League constrains teams’ payrolls via a “salary cap.” We analyze how teams allocate cap spending across rosters using a data set of over 10,000 player-season observations during 2000-2005. We find that a few players account for relatively high portions of teams’ caps, and that the players’ “cap values” are consistent with both “superstar” and Yule-Simon income distributions. A theoretical model based on a utility function convex with respect to winning is used to explain this result. We also find that the cap has been substantially effective in reducing teams’ ability to “spend their way to championships.”

Keywords: Sports; NFL; Draft; Quarterback; Productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J23 J42 L83 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 29 pages
Date: 2007-06
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul and nep-spo
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/Quinn_NFLJourneymen.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/Quinn_NFLJourneymen.pdf [302 Found]--> https://web.holycross.edu/RePEc/spe/Quinn_NFLJourneymen.pdf)

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:spe:wpaper:0722

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from International Association of Sports Economists Contact information at EDIRC., North American Association of Sports Economists Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Victor Matheson ().