Article Review

http://www.bizjournals.com/louisville/stories/2001/04/30/editorial4.html?page=all

The article explains the economic impact of professional sports teams on a city’s economy. The paper claims that they have much less of an impact than most people expect. It explains that the sports team’s stadiums actually do more for the economy than the team itself. Most stadiums get used for concerts and a variety of other events that are not the building’s main purpose. It also goes on to explain that every dollar spent on tickets or merchandise for a team that’s one dollar less spent on going out to eat, or the movies or another leisure activity.

                I had not thought about the economic impact of stadiums or arenas, how they probably have a huge impact on GDP and consumer spending. I also had not taken into account that if someone isn’t spending money on items relating to the team they are probably spending that money elsewhere. Their spending just changes what its towards during times of success. 

Outline

Outline

I.                   Introduction

Thesis: A professional sport’s team performance will create a noticeable difference in consumer spending. Generally, as a team’s record improves consumers tend to spend more money as well as if a team performs poorly consumers spend less. Despite consumers shuffling their spending away from sports entertainment in down years, consumers will increase their spending habits in times of success within the franchise specifically playoff runs. This can be shown by the change in consumer spending in the 2007-2008 Washington Capitals season, the 2006-2007 Pittsburgh Penguins season and a team’s poor performance negatively effecting consumer spending can be shown by the 2006 and 2007 Carolina Panthers.

II.                2007-2008 Washington Capitals

A.    Background on team

1.      Bottom of league in attendance,

2.      started off season with worst record in NHL

3.       Made improbable run to make playoffs.

4.      Sell out every single game now

B.     Effect on consumer spending

1.      DC residents increased spending on entertainment around same time as the Capitals record began improving.

2.      Consumer spending decreased after season ended

3.      Consumer spending directly related to the success the franchise.

III.             2006-2007 Pittsburgh Penguins

A.    Background on team

1.      Pittsburgh had nearly the worst record in hockey multiple years in a row.

2.      Little to no interest in team

3.      Talk of moving to Kansas City

4.      Drafted Sidney Crosby, expected to as good as Wayne Gretzky

5.      Crosby named captain, Penguins make playoffs

6.      Pittsburgh agrees to build a multi-million dollar arena for Penguins afterwards.

B.     Effect on consumer spending

1.      Crosby jerseys were number one hockey jersey sold in Pittsburgh

2.      Attendance increased, Season ticket holder renewal increased

3.      Pittsburgh residents spent more money during the hockey season than before hockey season.

4.      Spending declined after season and did not pick up again until football season was underway.

5.      The team’s success led to an increase in consumer spending

IV.             2006 and 2007 Carolina Panthers

A.    Background

1.      2005 Carolina Panthers went to NFC championship game

a.       All games sold out, Merchandise sales were up

2.      2006 went 8-8

a.       Games still sold out, Merchandise sales went down

3.      2007 went 7-9

a.       Games did not sell out merchandise went down

b.      Home games were blacked out

c.       Overall consumer spending in the charlotte metropolitan area diminished.

4.      Spending was directly correlated with the team’s success and diminished when they performed poorly.

V.                Conclusion

Assignment #4

The main idea of the article is about the sale of illegal drugs and the pyramid style set up of the industry. There are a select few who make a substantial amount of money and then the vast majority make less than minimum wage. The chapter follows a drug pyramid run by a gangster that goes by JT. In his pyramid scheme he makes a large sum of money and so do a few of the higher ups, but a large portion make next to nothing. Because the majority make so little and have the hardest job they are forced to live with their families rather than have their own residence.

Statistics: (I already owned the book on my kindle fire, I do not have page numbers, The percentages at the end of the statistics indicate the percentage into the book the data was found according to my kindle.
20% of revenues go to the dealer at the top of the pyramid as a result they do not even receive the money they get from all their transactions 26%
Foot soldiers in JT's operation earned less than $3.30 an hour, less than half of minimum wage. Showing that drug dealers usually make very little money. 27%
Average number of non fatal injuries per drug dealer 2.4, drug dealers constantly risk being hurt and while injured they have no income which makes it nearly impossible to get out of poverty and forces them to live with their mothers.

The statistics show that drug dealing is a dangerous job with little to no benefits, they risk arrest and death on a daily basis with the small possibility of working their way up the ladder to making large sums of money. The majority however live in poverty and live at home.

Thesis

Thesis statement: A professional sport’s team performance will create a noticeable difference in consumer spending. Generally, as a team’s record improves consumers tend to spend more money as well as if a team performs poorly consumers spend less. Despite consumers shuffling their spending away from sports entertainment in down years, consumers will increase their spending habits in times of success within the franchise specifically playoff runs. This can be shown by the change in consumer spending in the 2007-2008 Washington Capitals season, the 2006-2007 Pittsburgh Penguins season and a team’s poor performance negatively effecting consumer spending can be shown by the 2006 and 2007 Carolina Panthers.

Data:

http://www.bls.gov/cex/csxmsa.htm#y0405

Assignment #3: My Research Paper

My research paper is about the effect of a professional sports franchise's performance on consumer spending. I hope to find out if their is any correlation between the team's record and consumer spending. I want to see if when a team is making a deep playoff run people are spending more money or if they are spending the same amount just in different places. Finding the data has already been a challenge, there are so many factors besides whether or not the home team has a winning record, it may be hard to make any correlation. Also sometimes a teams performance may not have any effect whatsoever. Teams like the Green Bay Packers or the Dallas Cowboys could go 0-16 and they would still sell out every game. This topic has interested me because you can easily tell the difference in attendance at the game and sports bars when teams do well. I have always wondered, are people spending more or are they giving up a night at the movies or something else of equal value for this. I should probably look at attendance figures for the season I am looking at for the Washington Capitals, Pittsburgh Penguins and Carolina Patriots, as well as see if there is anyway to check the value of tickets that exchanged hands in the secondary market (Ebay, stubhub, craigslist etc.).

Assignment #2

The book provides an insight on the poor that I had never thought of. Specifically the idea that more money does not necessarily mean more food. It may mean better tasting food, but that better food may not give them anymore strength. The authors presents their argument in a way that is rather easy to grasp. They have firsthand accounts from the poor specifically with Pak Solhin, they use descriptions from him in order to convey their argument. I would say that they are fairly convincing, they provide insight that I had never thought of before and they do so from someone who lives it everyday. In the book I would like to see some graphs, specifically in chapter 2. The authors throw a lot of numbers out and they do not put it in visual form, a graph showing income in relation to calories consumed would leave a deeper impression on the reader. From the book I've learned about the little income that people have to survive on in third world countries, I obviously knew they were poor I just did not really fathom just how so.

The hunger based poverty trap is the idea that when a person is starving so badly that  the calories they do consume go to just keeping them alive. Because they are barely staying alive they can never build up the strength to work more, get more money and buy more/better food. This leaves them in a trap that they can never seem to get out of. Living on just enough food to survive, but never being comfortable and not having the strength to do a better job, or work longer hours to make more money. Those who already have money and food are able to work harder and more because they have the ability to do so, they were never caught in the trap. The authors provide real numbers as to where money is going and how much it costs to do certain things, deworming was the example provided. I believe the authors because when you logically think about it, it makes perfect sense. How can people ever get out of poverty if they are only eating enough food to barely stay alive? They can't.

Blogging

Blogging to me has never really been to academic purposes. I usually follow a handful of Ravens, Capitals, Orioles and tech blogs. I use them as a way to obtain information quickly on a very specific topic. After reading through blogs on Economics, I realized that I have been missing out on a large amount of information that is presented in a short, easily read and interactive format. Blogging is different than other writing in the sense that for the most parts comments can be left and debates can be had instantaneously in the comments section. The writing is almost always on a specific topic and does not stray too far from the overall theme of the blog. Blogs can also be presented as a journal with continuous posts displayed in reverse chronological order. The Blogs I decided to follow were Econometrics Beat: Dave Giles' Blog, Freakonomics, Paul Krugman's Blog and The Fix. Dave Giles' blog provides short posts about econometrics and random posts about applying econometrics to current events such as the medal count at the Olympics. The posts found in the Freakonomics blog are very similar to the chapters in the books. It is almost an extension of the book. Paul Krugman's blog posts about current events and his feelings on how they relate to specific topics in economics. The fix is the Washington Post's economics blog, it like Krugmans posts about current events and news, it is not purely an economics blog, but it does post about topics in economics frequently. All the blogs post almost every day, sometimes multiple times a day. I chose them all for this reason. The Econometrics Beat is probably what I find the least interesting, while it does use econometric data in current events that is very limited and posts a lot about econometric theory. Freakonomics I think is the most interesting because it uses econometric data to explain phenomena and does so in an interesting matter.