Managerial Objectives: A Retrospective on Utility Maximization in Pro Team Sports
| Author | Rodney Fort |
| Published date | 01 February 2015 |
| Date | 01 February 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12061 |
MANAGERIAL OBJECTIVES:
A RETROSPECTIVE ON UTILITY
MAXIMIZATION IN PRO TEAM SPORTS
Rodney Fort*
ABSTRACT
This is an essay review of the literature on utility maximization as a managerial
objective in pro team sports. It ends up that there is a heretofore-unrecognized
parallel development of the idea, in English football by Sloane [Scottish Journal
of Political Economy (1971), 17, 121] and in North American pro sports by
Quirk and El Hodiri, presented in that same year but not published as a confer-
ence proceeding until 1974. I review these works and place the rest of the extant
literature chronologically, noting their level of generality along a couple of
dimensions. I also observe a lack of a clear reference lineage in this literature
and suggest one. Adopting it should aid future researchers who are trying to
place their work in the context of this literature. [It would have helped me, for
example.]
II
NTRODUCTION
In this paper, the goal is to track the development of the literature on one
form of managerial objective in pro team sports, namely, utility maximization.
In the literature, I could find, the original application to pro sports is solely
attributed to Sloane (1971). However, joint work by James Quirk and
Mohammed El Hodiri presented at a Brookings conference in that same year
1971, but not published until later (1974), exhaustively formalized utility max-
imization as a managerial objective in pro team sports, in a general dynamic
model.
1
This seems to be an interesting case where great minds really were
thinking alike, and quite independently one from the others. In reviewing all
of the subsequent literature, I will refer to this as the Sloane/Quirk and El
Hodiri formulation, or S/Q-EH for short.
Table 1 shows a curious turn of events concerning the S/Q-EH formulation
in the subsequent literature. Directly following the line of utility maximization
as a managerial objective in pro team sports, the two original works are not
*University of Michigan
1
Others need not agree, but it is clear to me that Quirk and El Hodiri (1974) was in pro-
gress contemporaneous to Sloane (1971) also evidenced by the publication of their other,
profit maximization piece at exactly the same date (El Hodiri and Quirk, 1971).
Scottish Journal of Political Economy, DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12061, Vol. 62, No. 1, February 2015
©2015 Scottish Economic Society.
75
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