Abstract
This chapter investigates the Korean Basketball League (KBL). We first review the history of the KBL, and compare its features with those of its predecessor amateur league as well as those of the US professional league National Basketball Association (NBA). In particular, we examine comprehensively the effect of employing foreign players on the business of the KBL. The introduction of foreign players improved not only the absolute athletic level but also the competitive balance of the league. In fact, we found that more stringent regulation of the participation rate of foreign players in individual games resulted in reduced competitive balance for the league. Moreover, fans reacted negatively and immediately to deteriorating competitive balance across the KBL. Fans’ potential preferences for player nationalities were not statistically confirmed.
Keywords
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsNotes
- 1.
The relative standard deviation of winning percentage (a measure of competitive balance) has dropped by more than half from 1996 (5.460) to 1997 (2.214).
- 2.
The former name of the KBA was the “Chosun Basketball Association,” which was used until the Korean government was established in 1948.
- 3.
The Basketball Feast’s former name was “Jumbo Series.”
- 4.
After eight teams left for the KBL, the amateur league has consisted only of university teams and an army team.
- 5.
As far as schedule, each team played 3-round games 7 times (21 games total) in the postseason of 1997. Between 1998 and 2001, this changed to 5 rounds 9 times (45 games total). Finally, new rules were set in 2002: Each team played 6-round (3 home and 3 away) games 9 times (54 games total) in the postseason. Based on the regular-season results, six out of ten teams entered the playoff and the final winner was determined through the tournament.
- 6.
NBA games are four quarters in length, but each lasts 12 mins rather than 10.
- 7.
The zone defense is currently allowed in NBA.
- 8.
However, substitutions were allowed. Hence, from 2003 to 2006, both foreign players could play in the second quarter, but could not simultaneously. From 2007 to 2009, both foreign players could play in the first and fourth quarters, but the two were not allowed simultaneously in the second and third.
- 9.
Using the winning probabilities, we finally derive competitive balance measures.
- 10.
Since there were no foreign players in the amateur league, the average running times of foreign players are zero from 1983 to 1996, that league’s duration.
- 11.
For example, the KIA and Yonsei University, which had centers taller than two meters, were dominant in the amateur league.
- 12.
For example, the first-ranked team has the highest winning percentage of the league.
- 13.
1983 is the first year from which the data are available.
- 14.
Our AR(p) tests found no serial correlation.
- 15.
We match a team and its representative region on the basis of the highest regional classification in Korea (i.e., seven metropolitan cities and eight provinces that are mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive over the Korean Peninsula).
- 16.
The team-level attendance data are not available for the former amateur league, and the regional variables are not open to the public for the years after 2011.
- 17.
- 18.
The UPER is the intermediary product of player efficiency rating (PER) developed by an NBA columnist. Because a team’s pace is necessary to compute the PER but not publicly available, we use the UPER to measure efficiency.
References
Baimbridge M., Cameron S. & Dawson P. (1996). Satellite television and the demand for football: A whole new ball game. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 43(3), 317–333.
Burdekin, R. C. K., Hossfeld, R. T., & Smith, J. K. (2005). Are NBA fans becoming indifferent to race? Evidence from the 1990s. Journal of Sports Economics, 6(2), 144−159.
Cairns, J. A. (1987). Evaluating changes in league structure: The reorganization of the Scottish football league. Applied Economics, 19(2), 259–261.
Daly, G., & Moore, W. (1981). Externalities, property rights, and the allocation of resources in Major League Baseball. Economic Inquiry, 19(1), 77–95.
Depken, C. A. II (1999). Free-agency and the competitiveness of major league baseball. Review of Industrial Organization, 14(3), 205–217.
Fort, R., & Lee, Y. H. (2006). Stationarity and Major League Baseball attendance analysis. Journal of Sports Economics, 7(4), 408–415.
Fort, R., & Lee, Y. H. (2007). Structural change, competitive balance, and the rest of the major leagues. Economic Inquiry, 45(3), 519−532.
Fort, R., & Quirk, J. (1995). Cross-subsidization, incentives, and outcomes in professional team sport leagues. Journal of Economic Literature, 33(3), 1265−1299.
Gould, S. J. (1983). Losing the edge: The extinction of the 0.400 Hitter. Vanity Fair, 120, 264−278.
Jennett, N. (1984). Attendances, uncertainty of outcome and policy in the Scottish Football League. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 31(2), 176–198.
Koning, R. H. (2000). Balance in competition in Dutch soccer. The Statistician, 49(2), 419–431.
Kuypers, T. (1996). The beautiful game? An econometric study of why people watch English football (Discussion Paper in Economics 96–01). London: University College of London.
Lenten, L. J. A. (2009). Unobserved components in competitive balance and match attendances in the Australian Football League, 1945–2005: Where is all the action happening? Economic Record , 85(269), 181–196.
Lenten, L. J. A. (2013). Measurement of competitive balance in conference and divisional tournament design. Journal of Sports Economics. forthcoming. 2013.
Mills, B., & Fort, R. (2014). League-level attendance and outcome uncertainty in U.S. Pro Sports Leagues. Economic Inquiry, 52(1), 205−218.
Noll, R. G. (1974). Attendance and price setting. In R. G. Noll (Ed.), Government and the sports business (pp. 115–158). Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
Noll, R. (1998). Professional basketball. Stanford University Studies in Industrial Economics Working Paper No. 144.
Quirk, J. R., & Fort, R. (1997). Pay dirt: The business of professional team sports. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Rottenberg, S. (1956). The baseball player’s labor market. Journal of Political Economy, 64(3), 242−258.
Schmidt, M. B., & Berri, D. J. (2001). Competitive balance and attendance: The case of Major League Baseball. Journal of Sports Economics, 2(2), 145−167.
Schmidt, M. B., & Berri, D. J. (2002). Competitive balance and market size in Major League Baseball: A response to baseball’s Blue Ribbon panel. Review of Industrial Organization, 21(1), 41−54.
Schmidt, M. B., & Berri, D. J. (2003). On the evolution of competitive balance: The impact of an increasing global search. Economic Inquiry, 41(4), 692−704.
Scully, G. W. (1989). The business of Major League Baseball. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Staudohar, P. (1996). Playing for Dollars: Labor relations and the sports business. Cornell: ILR Press.
Szymanski, S. (2003). The economic design of sporting contests. Journal of Economic Literature, 41(4), 1137−1187.
Utt, J., & Fort, R. (2002). Pitfalls to measuring competitive balance with Gini coefficients. Journal of Sports Economics, 3(4), 367–373.
Vrooman, J. A. (1995). General theory of professional sports leagues. Southern Economic Journal, 61(4), 971–990.
Whitney, J. D. (1988). Winning games versus winning championships: The economics of fan interest and team performance. Economic Inquiry, 26(4), 703–724.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the valuable comments and suggestions of Young Hoon Lee and Rodney Fort, our two editors. We thank the KBL and KBA offices for providing the data sets of focus. We also thank Jinhwa Chung, Jinwook Jung, Bo Young Kim, Nayoung Kim, Sunkyu Park, Nyeong Seon Son, and Gooyong Yoon for their research assistants. All errors are our own.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Joo, H., Oh, T. (2015). Foreign Players, Competitive Balance, and Fan Demand in the Korean Basketball League. In: Lee, Y., Fort, R. (eds) The Sports Business in The Pacific Rim. Sports Economics, Management and Policy, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10037-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10037-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10036-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10037-1
eBook Packages: Business and EconomicsEconomics and Finance (R0)