There have been several books on the economics of professional sports in North America, often with a particular focus. For example, James Quirk and Rodney Fort (Pay Dirt: The Business of Professional Sports. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997) focuses on the business of sports leagues and Stuart Banner (The Baseball Trust: A History of Baseball's Antitrust Exemption. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) examines the antitrust history of baseball. The Big Leagues Go to Washington examines how the interaction between government and private businesses contributed to the shaping of the modern professional sports landscape, but identifies its focus as Congressional hearings and “related federal actions.” From the book's Introduction, I expected mostly detailed coverage of the inter-workings of Congressional hearings—the politics, nefarious side deals, and big personalities that were largely unseen to the casual observer, but guided professional sports to its current status. While the hearings before Congress are covered, the narrative often veers from the hearings to concentrate more on related federal actions. However, I do not intend this a criticism; to the contrary, the focus on the interplay of politics, business, regulators, and the judiciary is where the action is. By not constraining the analysis to the hearings, Surdam is able to detail the context of the debates and actions in their own time.
It turns out that most Congressional hearings served largely as political theater, with representatives of parochial interests on both sides (e.g., districts losing and gaining relocated teams) blowing wind to garner popularity from their respective constituencies but rarely producing substantial legislation. In fact, a 1976 Congressional committee seemed aware of the fact that the ratio of legislative action to interest was quite low: of more than 50 sports bills introduced between 1953 and 1972, only two resulted in legislative action (Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 and the approval of the AFL-NFL merger). One similarity across hearings is all participants' palpable concern (or bellyaching) over competitive balance among league teams, as if the implication was of great national importance; yet, much sports economics research shows competitive balance to be of trivial relevance even for sports leagues themselves.
As Walter Neale (“The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 78, no. 1 (1964): 1–14.) laments in his seminal paper, the economics of professional sports are peculiar. American sports leagues operate in conditions that foster natural monopoly leagues. The leagues have strong market power both as monopoly sellers of the top-tier of the sport as well as monopsony power in hiring top-level talent. The leagues must also bargain with labor unions of varying strength creating bilateral monopoly pressures. Consuming sports has transformed from in-person game attendance-only to broadcasting over radio and television. This transition in viewership, and how it affected franchise profitability, was not easily understood by teams themselves, much less government overseers meaning to do well. Leagues are composed of passionate fan bases that team owners leverage for rent-seeking to increase the profitability of their franchises. These peculiarities draw professional sports and politics together. Meanwhile, legislators and judges charged to oversee constituencies are themselves fans, thus making it more difficult for these representatives to be arbiters of the true “public interest” when it comes to sports. Both the judicial and legislative branches have not treated leagues fairly. Baseball is largely exempt from antitrust scrutiny, but this exemption has not been extended to other sports leagues. Congress passed legislation that allowed the AFL and NFL to merge despite antitrust concerns, but denied the merger request of the ABA and NBA. From far away, these conclusions seem irrational. Though unfair, these contradictions are better understood by Surdam's in-depth accounts.
A brief summary of all the topics covered in the book is not possible in this space because of the breadth of this book's coverage. The book covers most issues faced by the four major North American sports leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL) during this era: antitrust challenges and the pursuit of exemptions, the rise and decline of rival leagues, broadcast rights and blackouts, labor strife, franchise relocations, horizontal league mergers, and vertical integration with minor leagues. Legislators and the courts tackled all these issues, and Surdam's detail provides understanding as to how the current sports environment came into being.
Surdam demonstrates an extensive knowledge of the economic history of American professional sports. His sources are well documented with extensive footnotes and his writing is informing and presented in an enjoyable manner. One of the joys of reading the book is that the author casually reveals the depth of his knowledge of the economic history of sports throughout the book. For example, Surdam brings up the denied application of the Mid-South Grizzlies football team of the World Football League to join the NFL. I was previously unaware of this team's existence and thus searched for more information. It turns out the Grizzlies were intended to be based in Toronto (as the Northmen) until the Parliament of Canada proposed legislation to protect its own national brand of football. Now, I have a new example to add to a class lecture. I suspect even readers familiar with the economic history of American sports similarly will learn of sports economics events that they were previously unaware.
What Surdam has accomplished with The Big Leagues should be appreciated. He has written a sports economic history of a time and subject that has been well-covered by previous authors; yet, he manages to present a worthy addition to this literature. His research is extensive, but the prose is light with new insights. The book would benefit from some condensing and organization, but it is a minor imperfection. I would welcome an extension of the book from 1990s to the present; perhaps, the author is working on a sequel.
