Description
Book SynopsisOrganised baseball has survived its share of difficult times, and never was the state of the game more imperiled than during the Great Depression. Or was it? In this economist's look at the sport as a business between 1929 and 1941, David George Surdam argues that although it was a very tough decade for baseball, the downturn didn't happen immediately.
Trade Review“Surdam’s book represents the best and probably the only solid study of major-league baseball’s economic situation during the Depression.”—Dorothy Seymour Mills, New York Journal of Books
“With the American economy struggling, major-league baseball attendance falling for the fourth consecutive year and the Los Angeles Dodgers in bankruptcy, David George Surdam’s
Wins, Losses, and Empty Seats about the game's Depression-era troubles is certainly timely. Mr. Surdam, who teaches economics at the University of Northern Iowa, comes to his task armed with a fan's enthusiasm, an economist's tool kit and a certain dissatisfaction with previous analyses—including my own—of the evolution of the baseball business.”—Henry D. Fetter,
Wall Street Journal Table of ContentsList of Tables
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Prologue: Clash of Titans
Part 1: The Financial Side of the Game
1. The American Economy and the State of Baseball Profits
2. Why Did Profits Collapse? The Revenue Side
3. Why Did Profits Collapse? Player Salaries and Other Expenses
4. Farm Systems
Conclusion of Economic Side
Part 2: The Game on the Field
5. Competitive Balance
6. Player Movement
Part 3: Using League Rules to Aid in the Recovery
7. Helping the Indigent
8. Manipulating the Schedule to Increase Revenue
Part 4: Innovations to Boost Attendance and Profits
9. Radio and Baseball
10. Baseball Under the Lights
11. Other Innovations
12. How Effective Were the Innovations?
13. The Inept and the Restless: Franchise Relocation
Epilogue: The End of an Era
Appendix 1: Radio and Sunday Ball's Effect on Attendance
Appendix 2: Dramatis Personae
Appendix of Tables
Notes
Bibliography Index
