2026/03/30 by Geoffrey Propheter, Stefan Szymanski · 1 voice
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · Psychology · Business, Management and Accounting · #Sports Analytics and Performance #Gambling Behavior and Treatments #Consumer Market Behavior and Pricing
paper · doi:10.1111/coep.70030
openalex publication_date 2026/03/30 · openalex created_date 2026/03/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/21
Abstract In the 1990s, the city of San Diego agreed to purchase unsold tickets to Chargers' games at the team's price. This was a short‐term contract affording the team owner ample room for opportunistic rent extraction. Research and discourse tends to frame owners' constraints on subsidy rent extraction magnitude as determined heavily by lawmaker political calculus. A multi‐year, uncapped, and legally binding ticket guarantee frees the owner from these constraints. Despite this, we estimate ticket prices rose 20%–30%, less than intuition might suggest. Our results suggest owners' ticket pricing behavior faces constraints exogenous to the subsidy policy process.