Jonathan Ernest, Ph.D. – Assistant Professor of Economics

Dear Colleagues:

Greetings, and I hope that you and yours are healthy and safe in this socially-distanced time.

As part of that distancing, we’re continuing the “Friday Lunch” as an online event. After over thirty-years of in-person discussions it’s a bit of an adjustment; but it has been good to see colleagues who have moved away and now can take advantage of the new format.

It has always seemed as if the Cleveland Indians will not re-sign Francisco Lindor. Baseball is a business and some teams earn a lot more money than others so can pay more for players.

But our local nine is slashing payroll far more aggressively than would have been expected a year ago, and the reason is obvious: the revenues lost to the COVID-19 public health and economic crisis. Revenues are down for all sports to a varying extent, in the United States and abroad, and in the U.S. both professional and very-commercial-but-not-professional: college basketball and football at the D-1 level.

In universities the effects ripple into overall athletic and university budgets: if there is a silver lining to the effects of the pandemic on CWRU, it is that we are not taking the kind of athletic program economic hit that, say, The Ohio State University is suffering.

In professional sports the effects of revenue loss will depend on many factors. How much of the revenue can be retained by playing without crowds but with video audiences? How does the labor market work within that sport? How will the financial pressures from the pandemic affect labor relations? Can a city like Cleveland benefit from a shift in compensating differentials, when an entire league plays within a “bubble” in sunny Orlando? To what extent are teams’ revenues or costs equalized by broadcast revenues or salary caps? What are the effects of possibly shortened schedules, as in the NBA, or of seasons being displaced and sports that usually do not compete with each other for eyeballs matching up with each other, as happened this Summer? And, most puzzling of all, assuming the pandemic ends, will everything in the sports business return to normal, or will there be long-term consequences?

In Spring of 2021 Professor Ernest will be teaching ECON 366, “Economics of Sports.” The course applies perspectives from microeconomics, industrial organization and public finance to address a wide range of questions, such as the costs and benefits of public finance of facilities, or the incentives to invest in new players. Join us as he works through the current and future implications of the pandemic, for one of the things we hope can help us forget the pandemic.

Signing In

This semester’s discussions will begin at 12:30 p.m., the usual time. The meeting will be set up as from Noon to 2:00 p.m., so people are not all signing in at the same time and to allow for the discussion to run a bit long. Each week we will send out this newsletter with information about the topic. It will also include a link to register (for free) for the discussion. Every Monday the same information will be posted on our website: fridaylunch.case.edu.

If you register, you will automatically receive from the Zoom system the link to join the meeting. This week’s link for registration is:

https://cwru.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0lf-yrrTouHdVpuU_a58eiEc0ReabnGV6D

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Please e-mail padg@case.edu if you have questions about how the Zoom version of the Friday Lunch will work or any other suggestions. Or call at 216 368-2426 and we’ll try to get back to you. We are very pleased to be partnering this semester with the Siegal Lifelong Learning Program to share information about the discussions.

Best wishes for safety and security for you and yours,

Joe White
Luxenberg Family Professor of Public Policy and Director, Center for Policy Studies

About Our Guest

Jonathan Ernest currently serves as Assistant Professor of Economics in the Weatherhead School of Management at Case Western Reserve University.

Professor Ernest conducts research both in academia and the private sector using SAS, Excel, and Stata to analyze large and complex data sets to produce interesting and actionable results.

In 2009, Jonathan Ernest obtained dual Bachelors of Science degrees in political science and economics from Clemson University. Upon graduation, he spent four years working as a competitive intelligence analyst in the automobile insurance industry before enrolling in graduate school. Jonathan Ernest received his Ph.D. in economics from Clemson University in 2019.