Graduation Year

2024

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Department

Economics

Reader 1

Roberto Pedace

Reader 2

Sean Flynn

Abstract

While it might be difficult to tell, professional sports organizations are, at their core, businesses, and just like any other business, are motivated by profitability. This research focuses on the National Basketball Association (NBA) and explores the critical trade-off of maintaining integrity and impartiality while striving to optimize output for maximizing returns. This analysis adopts a business-oriented approach to the NBA, examining its revenue through the lens of referee foul calls in high-stakes games. Referee foul calls stand as the dependent variable due to their substantial influence over desired outcomes, potentially driving heightened viewership and revenue generation by catering to fan preferences through perceived bias. Five key explanatory variables—series game number, game type (elimination or non-elimination), team position (home or away), star players, and team net worth—frame the analysis, offering dichotomous outcomes that may influence referee foul calls. It aims to uncover if there is a significant and non-random pattern of referee foul calls in playoff games that will create such favorable outcomes to generate more revenue for the NBA. Contrary to initial expectations, the empirical data did not support my hypothesis of revenue augmentation through specified referee bias. Nevertheless, these findings present an opportunity for future research to dive deeper into the intersection of professional sports and their associated business objectives, utilizing this data as a foundation for further exploration.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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