The Impact of Pooling and Sharing Broadcast Rights in Professional Team Sports

In this theoretical analysis, we try to find out what the impact is of pooling and sharing, and not just the sharing of broadcast rights, on the competitive balance in a sports league. We are using a simplified 2-club non-cooperative Nash equilibrium model with the hiring of talent as the only decision variable. The conclusion is that the individual sale of broadcast rights, combined with a pure performance-related sharing arrangement of the money, offers the best guarantee for an improvement of the competitive balance.