Hiring sports celebrities to endorse both sports and nonsports products is firmly embedded as an international business practice. Companies use the popularity of athletes to sell more products or services.

Competitive balance describes the degree of uncertainty about the outcome of sporting events. Economists posit that uncertainty about the outcome of sporting events plays an important role in determining fans’ interest in these events. In order to test this theory, some measure of the degree of uncertainty inherent in sporting events must be developed.

Sports are a prime example of an activity that has, at its higher levels, become a highly commercialized commodity.

Many people might say that commercialization has ruined sports. U.S. sports fans are, for the most part, nostalgic about the institution of sports as a way to enjoy leisure with one’s family, to relax, to teach skills (most frequently people cite the development of leadership and team-building skills) that will allow athletes to find success after they leave the field of play, whether their career ends with Little League, high school, college, or even professional sports.

Collective bargaining is the process through which management of an enterprise and the workers (in the case of sport, the players) bargain over components of the working relationship.