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Robert Sandy , Peter J Sloane and Mark S Rosentraub Palgrave Macmillan: New York,NY,USA, 2004. xvi+347pp.
Why study the economics of sports? Sports revenues are not a substantial share of gross national product, but sports have been a high-profile feature of societies for more than 4000 years. Lately, the economics of sports has become a specialised branch of economics with over a thousand articles, a journal, and many courses on college campuses. Public policy issues involving sports facilities are of burgeoning interest and appear in both the sports and business pages of our newspapers. I also agree with Sandy, Sloane and Rosentraub when they say 'From a pedagogical perspective, the economics of sports is a wonderful subject...with compelling topics' (p. xii).
As compared with at least three other recent textbooks on this subject, the authors say their book is more comprehensive, more rigorous (building on introductory and intermediate microeconomics with exercises, optional sections and some calculus), and - most distinctively and important to the readers of this journal - truly comparative in approach. 'Professional sports are undergoing a rapid transformation toward globalization...a textbook with an international perspective, focusing primarily on the USA, Canada, Europe and Australia, is the only way to explain these changes in [a] coherent...