MARKET POWER OF GLOBAL SPORTS ORGANISATION THE CASE OF PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL AND BOXING

Global sport organisations gather all professional sport organizations on national or local level, providing uniform rules for competition. This can be established under one organisation, as in the example of football, or under several organisations, as in the example of boxing. The difference is mainly in the market power of such organisations, as less organisations on the market generate higher market power. Market power indicates the strength of an individual on the market, and is derived from the market share, which is the percentage of a market covered. Only one organisation is a characteristic of a monopoly, and in this case the market power is the highest possible, as well as the profits. Other possibility for global sport organisations is oligopolistic structure, where several organisations compete and act simultaneously on the market. Monopoly is the most desirable market structure from the aspect of the organisation that is a monopolist, but the most unwanted from the aspect of users, in this case players/clubs/boxers. In this paper, authors compare these two options on the example of global football and global boxing. FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) is the umbrella football organisation in the world, and thus has become a key partner and regulator of all players in the professional football market. Professional boxing is regulated at the worldwide level by the group of four organisations which currently enjoy the highest reputation and influence: WBA (World Boxing Association), WBC (World Boxing Council), IBF (International Boxing Federation) and WBO (World Boxing Organization). The analysis will show the implications of these two different possibilities of setting up global sport organisations.