Hitting the Moneyball Into the Luxury Box
Open Access
- Author:
- Loggia, Christopher Angelo
- Area of Honors:
- Finance
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Dr. Robert Alexander Novack, Thesis Supervisor
Dr. Brian Spangler Davis, Thesis Honors Advisor
Dr. Brian Spangler Davis, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- Finance
Baseball
Moneyball
Player Valuation
Z-Score
Sports
Statistics
Revenue
Attendance
Winning Percentage - Abstract:
- This paper aims to determine if utilizing Moneyball roster management tactics improves the revenue generation and profitability of a franchise from a franchise owner’s perspective. Ultimately, if a baseball team makes a specific effort to utilize Moneyball tactics, would the overall value of the franchise improve. All data is sourced from historical Major League Baseball statistics over eighteen seasons from 1997 to 2014. The analysis includes the creation of a new player valuation model by analyzing the career average Z-score to salary efficiency ratio. The analysis will test the relationship between a number of variables, but largely between the Z-score to salary ratio and total annual fan attendance and the Z-score to salary ratio and total annual revenue. The study found that by using a standard linear regression, there is a positive relationship between the Z-score to salary efficiency ratio with each of annual attendance and annual revenue. However, there is no relationship between the Z-score to salary ratio and winning percentage. Additionally, by using a forced constant regression, there are no positive relationships between the Z-score to salary ratio to any of annual attendance, revenue or winning percentage.