Andrew Zimbalist on the economics of baseball, mixed martial arts, and college sports

Andrew Zimbalist, the Robert A. Woods Professor Emeritus of Economics at Smith College, discusses his academic background, the economics of sports, especially baseball, his thoughts on the monopsony power of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), and how college sports might be reorganized to prioritize the education and well-being of student athletes. 

In this episode, Zimbalist and Ashenfelter discuss:

• How Zimbalist, who grew up in Great Neck, New York, ended up at the University of Wisconsin.
• His decision to attend Harvard for graduate school. “I graduated from Wisconsin in 1969.. I wanted to understand the economics behind our involvement in Vietnam, and I wanted to stick with economics.”
• How his son encouraged him to study the economics of baseball. “‘Hey dad [he said], you're an economist. You like baseball… Why don't you write a book on the economics of baseball?’”
• Zimbalist’s thoughts on the value of using sports to explicate economics. “It's pretty easy to figure out how you can measure a [baseball] player's offensive capabilities and measure the player's defensive capabilities. And so, you can do things like test marginal revenue product theory.”
• Zimbalist’s book on the economics of baseball, including the evolving application of sabermetrics (originally SABRmetrics). “Now teams are realizing that even though you can hire a statistician for much less than you can hire a baseball player, you can still garner some information. And because statisticians are so much cheaper, teams are continuing to do it.”
• The settlement of the antitrust suit filed against the UFC for wage suppression. “They were paying [fighters] something like 15% of revenue…a very reduced share [that] was reflective of the monopsony power they got from their monopoly power.”
• His views on how college sports could be reorganized. “I would like to see a reversion to an embrace of amateurism… that treats the athletes right,… gives them proper healthcare,… [and] gives them a robust education.”

Andrew Zimbalist earned his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1974. He is Robert A. Woods Professor Emeritus of Economics at Smith College, and has been a visiting professor at Doshisha University, the University of Geneva and Hamburg University. He is well known for his work related to the economics of sports and several other topics, including comparative economic systems, labor economics, and the development of Latin American economies. "The Work Goes On"—a podcast produced by Princeton's Industrial Relations Section (IR Section)—is an oral history of industrial relations and labor economics hosted by Princeton's Orley Ashenfelter.