My Journal of Sports Economics article "Efficiency and Managerial Performance in FBS College Football" is now available online.

Abstract and Download link

Data Appendix: Rankings of all FBS coaches 2006-2011

Abstract

This article develops a model of managerial efficiency for National Collegiate Athletic Association’s top division college football coaches. The derived efficiency measures are then linked to the hiring and firing process. The work concludes with an evaluation of the effect of head coach succession on team performance. This study evaluates coaching efficiency in terms of both use of talent and recruiting talent. The constructed efficiency rankings are used to evaluate hiring and firing decisions and determine the degree that each type of efficiency plays in these decisions. Last, the efficiency of the market is assessed by evaluating whether universities are making a good choice and are able on average to improve performance when replacing an under-performing coach. The empirical results indicate that both constructs of efficiency matter. Coaches who exhibit high level of both types of efficiencies regularly move up to the most lucrative jobs. Replacement of a poor performing coach is most often a wise decision.

Data Appendix: College Football Coaches Ranked- Journal of Sport Economics Paper

My article "Efficiency and Managerial Performance in FBS College Football: To the Employment and Succession Decisions, which Matters the Most, Coaching or Recruiting? will be published in 2013 in the Journal of Sports Economics.  I rank all NCAA FBS coaches in terms of their ability to coach (convert their available talent to wins) and to recruit talent. Tests are run to see how each measure influences hiring and firing decisions. The paper's tables lists the 10 best and 10 worst coaches in both categories for the most recent three years. I am posting the appendix here that includes the entire rankings of all FBS coaches from 2005-2011. There are two tables, the first rank coaches in order of efficiency of talent use and table 2 ranks them in order of recruiting efficiency for each year.

 Data Appendix

Supreme Court overturns (9-0) the Seventh Circuit’s ruling in American Needle v. National Football League

This case is important to labor relations because a ruling in favor of the league could not only identify a single entity for NFL apparel contracts, but for all business dealings, including labor issues. As Michael McCann points out in his SI.com column the decision provides NFLPA with relief going forward into labor talks.

Many collective bargaining provisions are, outside of the CBA, violations of antitrust, but off limits to challenges because of the non-statutory labor exemption. Nonetheless the unions’ leverage remains in the antitrust courts, and a decision for the league in this case could seriously tilt the playing field. Simply compare the recently settled MLS CBA to those of the the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL. The MLS enjoys legal single entity status, and the MLS players union was able to negotiate little more than reserve era rights and no level of free agency.

Fehr to Step Down as Head of MLBPA

As has been widely reported Donald Fehr, Executive Director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, announced his retirement Monday, June 22, effective no later than the end of March 2010. Fehr’s retirement paves the way for his successor, Michael Weiner, to lead negotiations for the next collective bargaining agreement. The current CBA expires with the 2011 season.

Fehr’s quarter century tenure, during which the MLBPA maintained it’s reputation as the most powerful and effective of the professional sports unions, is marked by three milestones. Fehr managed the union’s successful efforts in the court victories over the owners in the collision cases of the late 1980s. He led the resistance to the owners’ brazen attempt at union busting in 1994, calling for the strike that cancelled that year’s World Series, but restored the terms of the collective bargaining agreement sans salary cap. His final decade is marked by the reluctant inclusion of incrementally more rigorous drug testing into the CBA. The first two, especially from the perspective of the players who hired him, will be considered feathers in his cap and bolster his reputation as a highly skilled lawyer and formidable negotiator. Fehr’s handling of the union’s position on performance enhancing drugs is more ambivalent.

Initially Fehr maintained a staunch civil liberties posture toward drug testing—a holdover from the union’s position on recreational drugs. Protection of civil liberties and privacy rights is laudable and has extensive legal justification. However, it provides some cover for the cheaters and criminals at the expense of the other "clean" players. Moreover, because performance, and therefore compensation in baseball is relative, the dimensions of damage to the rank and file are quite different than with recreational drug use. It’s with this balance that Fehr has struggled, and his reluctance to more aggressively address testing and performance enhancing drugs, whether admirable or misguided, will doubtless haunt his legacy.

NFL Labor Negotiations: Early Posturing over Disclosure of League Financial Information

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith, executive director of the NFL Players Association opened talks toward a new collective bargaining agreement when the two met last week in New York. AP coverage on the meeting reports that an early point of contention is the commissioner’s refusal to offer the union full financial information.

One early subject of contention: the union's demand the NFL teams open their books and the league's position that the union already has all the relevant financial information.

The battle over financial disclosure in negotiations is not new, and whether the league or union are legally in the right depends on the particular circumstances. However if the NFL maintains that financial concerns are driving their bargaining position, they should be obligated to open their books to the union.

In 1980, the Major League Baseball Player Relations Committee (PRC) proposed replacing the free agency with a more restricted version, akin to the NFL’s Rozelle Rule, whereby clubs losing a free agent could select a player from the roster of the club signing that player. The union, under the leadership of Marvin Miller, strongly objected, contending (correctly) that the market for free agents would be significantly restrained. Prior to the negotiations, Commissioner Kuhn and some individual club owners (Kroc and Turner) made public comments to the effect that escalating salaries, driven by free agency, had caused serious financial problems to the game— to the degree that some clubs were on the verge of bankruptcy. The commissioner’s statements implied that a financial threat to MLB clubs, and therefore players’ livelihoods, was imminent if players did not accept restrictions on free agency. Miller consequently petitioned the NLRB to force MLB to open its books and provide evidence to the union of the claimed financial distress, under the conventions of good faith bargaining. Miller’s position was that the Players Association must have the requested financial data in order to fulfill its duty of fair representation. The Board agreed with Miller, but the PRC appealed in US District Court (Silverman v. MLB PRC, US District Court, Southern District of NY, 1981). The Court overruled the NLRB in favor of the PRC. The rationale given was based on the PRC’s exclusive authority (my emphasis) to formulate the bargaining position of the clubs. The commissioner was not a member of the PRC—nor was an agency relationship established between them to the Court’s satisfaction. Therefore, the commissioner’s statements could not be attributed to the PRC as a statement of their bargaining position.

The inference drawn from Silverman is that if the specific financial concerns are part of the NFL’s official bargaining position, the union is justified in asking for financial disclosure. Included in the NFL’s statement in May 2008, as their rationale for opting out of the current CBA two years early was the following:

The NFL earns very substantial revenues. But the clubs are obligated by the CBA to spend substantially more than half their revenues – almost $4.5 billion this year alone -- on player costs. In addition, as we have explained to the union, the clubs must spend significant and growing amounts on stadium construction, operations and improvements to respond to the interests and demands of our fans. The current labor agreement does not adequately recognize the costs of generating the revenues of which the players receive the largest share; nor does the agreement recognize that those costs have increased substantially -- and at an ever increasing rate -- in recent years during a difficult economic climate in our country. As a result, under the terms of the current agreement, the clubs’ incentive to invest in the game is threatened.

It appears that financial issues are a significant part of the league’s official bargaining position. (Although that determination will have to be made by the NLRB or courts.) Commissioner Goodell claims that the union has all relevant information and, as required by the CBA for salary cap computations, the union does have access to all revenue information and labor costs. However, they are not privy to information on costs as they relate to capital expenses, specifically stadium construction, which the league claims have changed the economic climate to the degree that a new CBA is necessary. As such, the NFL should be required to open its books to the union.