ABSTRACT
The most natural way to conceive of a sporting contest or tournament, theoretically speaking, is within the framework of a Tullock contest. This chapter sets out how this framework can be applied, the kinds of questions that can be answered, and where the literature stands today, and how it might develop in the future. A Tullock contest involves several players competing to win a prize. Each player is assumed to choose independently an input quantity, which might be thought of as effort or as a financial payment toward winning the prize, such that the probability of winning is increasing in this quantity. Most sports leagues are organized along the lines of a tournament. There appears to be a presumption in some of the sports literature that this form of incentive structure is necessarily efficient. The economic theory of tournaments and contests provides a natural framework for thinking about policy issues in the economics of sports.
