The Pricing of Sports Events: Do Teams Maximize Profit?

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A model of price setting behaviour by National Hockey League teams based on the assumption of profit maximization is developed, estimated, and tested. The model implies parameter restrictions across equations of a two-equation simultaneous nonlinear econometric model, tested by a likelihood ratio test, and implies restrictions on the first and second derivatives of the revenue function, tested with Wald tests. The results in large measure support the hypothesis that hockey teams are profit maximizers, in contrast to some suggestions in the literature. The analysis provides an attractive example of the potential of sports data for testing behavioural hypotheses in economics.