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Abstract
Becker (1971) first identified the potential sources of labor market discrimination, which is defined as the unequal treatment of equally qualified workers. Sports labor markets serve as an excellent testing ground for discrimination due to the large amount of information that is publicly available on the performance, employment status, and personal characteristics of key individuals over extended periods of time.This dissertation focuses on customer discrimination by race and asks: “How do consumers respond to a product based on the racial background of the key individuals who represent the product?” It is difficult to empirically address this question due to difficulty in collecting data that captures actual consumer behavior while simultaneously controlling for product quality and characteristics. Therefore, this dissertation empirically tests for potential customer discrimination based on the racial information of key actors (i.e., players and head coaches) in live sport television consumption. This dissertation builds off of existing literature by assessing potential customer discrimination in both National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men’s college basketball games and
National Basketball Association (NBA) professional games using national and local market television viewership data, respectively, over the same time period.
After controlling for factors capturing contest quality and characteristics, the empirical models produce evidence indicating the race of key individuals is a practically relevant and statistically significant driver of live sport product consumption. A positive impact of minority players on viewership exists, regardless of viewership type, with respect to both the sheer number of roster players by race and actual playing time by race. Furthermore, this positive effect is primarily due to Black players in both collegiate and professional basketball, a result potentially suggesting reverse discrimination against White players. At the managerial level, the results indicate a potential consumption bias against minority head coaches in both settings. Together, the findings suggest a potential bias in consumption against minorities in leadership positions, but preference for minorities when they are competing as athletes in the actual competition.