OLET1145: Economics of Sports

University of Sydney•2026 S2
In Progress
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Sports Economics
Competitive Balance
Incentives
Strategy
Empirical Evidence

An economic view of professional sport, examining leagues, teams, player incentives, competitive balance, strategic behaviour and empirical evidence.

Learning Outcomes

Official unit information
  • Economic reasoning: Apply core economic tools to questions in professional sport and its business environment.
  • Agents and incentives: Analyse how leagues, teams and players make decisions under different incentives and constraints.
  • Competitive balance: Explain why competitive balance matters to the operation and long-term value of professional competitions.
  • Strategy and behaviour: Use economic thinking to examine tactics, motivation, cheating and strategic choices in sport.
  • Evidence: Interpret empirical studies and communicate economic principles coherently in a sporting context.

Current Focus

I am using this unit to complement technical sports analytics with a clearer understanding of the institutions and incentives behind the data. It helps connect performance models to the economic decisions made by teams, leagues, athletes and audiences.