The NFL Lockout will affect American popular culture and society with potential job and money loss. It also brings to light the spending habits of average American's and players, and demonstrate the influence of unions on society. In addition the lockout illustrates the anxieties felt by the average American and the conflict between classes during this recession.

No Economic Effect

Despite the evidence found on other pages that the NFL lockout will have widespread economic effects, there is a large amount of evidence that suggests that the NFL lockout will not have an effect on local economies and any effects on specific areas of the economy will only be temporary.  This conclusion comes from analyzing many studies which look at the economic effects of past lockouts in professional sports.

The first of these studies is "The Economic Consequences of Professional Sports Strikes and Lockouts" by Dennis Coates and Brad R. Humphreys.  In this study Coates and Humphreys analyize the effect of lockouts, specifically the NBA lockout of 1998-1999, on the local economies of the cities with teams.  Through analysis of per capita growth and income of local economies, Coates and Humphreys concluded that "the evidence does not support the assertion that professional sports influence the economic health" of local economies (Coates and Humphreys 746).  Another study which looks at the influence of professional sports lockouts is "The Economic Consequences of Professional Sports Strikes and Lockouts: Revisited" by Robert A. Baade, Robert Baumann, and Victor Matheson.  This study is published in 2006 as is therefore able to also incorporate the NHL lockout of 2004, which had a devastating effect on the league.  In this study Baade, Baumann, and Matheson look at the taxable sales in Flordia cities with professional sports teams.  This study comes to the same conclusion that Coates and Humphreys reach and decide that lockouts and strikes have no effect on the taxable sales of a local economy.  This means that without sports teams people will find a way to spend their money.  So a lockout may a some effect on specific industries related to sports, but the economy as a whole will not be effected by a NFL lockout.

Along with evidence that a NFL lockout will not effect local economies, there is also evidence that any effect felt by the industries specifically affected would be temporary and as soon as the lockout ended those industries would revert back to their previous states.  "The Impact of Labor Strikes on Consumer Demand: An Application to Professional Sports" by Martin B. Schmidt and David J. Berri analizes the attendance at games after lockouts and strikes.  Schmidt and Berri conclude that " none of the events we examined had a permanent impact upon attendance in these sports" (Schmidt and Berri 356).  This means that even if a lockout had some economic consequence, it would only last as long as the lockout.

While the NFL lockout may have some effect on specific industries related to the NFL, it will not an effect on the local economies or the national economy and any specific industries hurt by the lockout will only be hurt until the lockout is over. 

Sources:
Baade, Robert A., Robert Baumann, and Victor Matheson. "The Economic Consequences of Professional Sports Strikes and Lockouts: Revisited." The College of Holy Cross, Department of Economics Faculty Research Series 06.04 (2006): 1-18. Web.
 
Coates, Dennis, and Brad R. Humphreys. "The Economic Consequences of Professional Sports Strikes and Lockouts." Southern Economic Journal 67.3 (2001). ProQuest. Web.
 
Schmidt, Martin B., and David J. Berri. "The Impact of Labor Strikes on Consumer Demand: An Application to Professional Sports." The American Economic Review 94.1 (2004): 344-57. JSTOR. Web.


Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)