Thursday, September 22, 2011
Injury Plagued New York Giants
The New York Giants's 2011 season is already looking grim in just the third week of the season. The Giants have suffered injuries to ten players already and most of them season ending. Specialization of labor has back fired on the Giants as they have decent receivers and line backers, but they are hurt with no one of equal value to take there job. The NFL is pretty much the definition of specialization of labor as most guys play just one position, but right now for the Giants it would be helpful if the league was not so specialized. Then they could just move someone from another position to fill in, but since players are not acquainted to playing multiple positions at the pro level it would be a inefficient to the team. So instead of being able to move veterans around to help the team contend, they just put rookies out there in the game to fill the spots and hope for the best. Although this specialization of labor keeps a level of demand in the league for backups and rookies. For example since the Giants have multiple injuries they now have a larger demand for players to come and fill that spot. Therefore sports in a way goes against the Law of Demand in that as the injuries become more costly the demand increases. Overall I think economic principles are a bit different when referring to football or just sports in general.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
You bring up an interesting point. However, with all these injuries do you think the fans demand to watch the team play is increasing or decreasing? Why or Why not?
Demand for football is an ongoing thing in the world today. When football players get injured, the fans are still expecting to watch a team play, despite these injuries. However, since the player's injuries are causing more demand, will this prove to be effective or will it only worsen a team's chances of winning?
I never thought about how injuries drive the demand for players in the NFL. Labor Specialization in football compared to sports like baseball is more important because each position requires different physical attributes to be successful.
The more injuries on the team would create less of a demand for the fans to watch. The fans are not really interested in watching a bunch of guys they have never heard of. For example in baseball some teams in September, the last month of the season, call up a few players from AAA to get them looks for next season. It would be like watching a team with about ten of those call ups on it who you had never heard of before. The Houston Astros are good example as they have traded away there big name players to start a rebuilding process, and now I know like 5 guys on there team. These teams with a lot of call ups usually are not big contenders and therefore a little boring to watch, so the demand to watch them would decrease.
Economic principles change when it comes to sports. The unpredictability and various factors of players, teams, and leagues have an impact on economic principles. If a team’s starters are continuously getting injured and backups or rookies are having to play, viewer ratings might go down because the demand is lower. But if the NY Giants decided to pick up free-agent Terrell Owens, the demand for Giants football could sky rocket. Sports follow economic principles but in a different way than other parts of society.
-Larson M
Post a Comment