Szymanski, Stefan 1960-

views updated

Szymanski, Stefan 1960-

PERSONAL:

Born March 29, 1960; married; children: three. Education: Hertford College, Oxford, B.A., 1983; Birkbeck College, University of London, M.Sc., 1985, Ph.D., 1988.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Tanaka Business School, Imperial College London, South Kensington Campus, London SW7 2AZ, England. E-mail—s.szymanski@imperial.ac.uk; szy@imperial.ac.uk.

CAREER:

Economist, educator, and author. London Business School, Center for Business Strategy, London, England, assistant professor, 1989-93; Imperial College London, Management School, lecturer, 1993-95, senior lecturer, 1995-99, reader in economics, 1999-2002, The Business School, professor of economics and M.B.A. program director, 2002—. Warsaw University of Technology Business School, visiting professor of economics and member of governing council, 1993—; visiting professor at University of Illinois at Urbana College of Law, 2000, University of Melbourne, 2001, and Smith College, 2004. London Business School, postdoctoral research fellow, 1988-89. Frequent guest on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) radio and television programs, including Newsnight, Six o'Clock News, Financial World Tonight, Today Programme, Business Breakfast, and World at One. Consultant for companies such as the United Kingdom Treasury, British Telecom, Prudential Portfolio Managers, Shell, Eurotunnel, Kraft General Foods, British Gas, UK Civil Aviation Authority, and the Federation International d'Automobile.

MEMBER:

International Association of Sports Economists (vice president, 1999-2000).

WRITINGS:

(With Tim Kuypers) Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football, Viking (London, England), 1999, Penguin (New York, NY), 2000.

(Editor, with Carlos Pestana Barros and Muradali Ibrahimo) Transatlantic Sport: The Comparative Economics of North American and European Sports, Edward Elgar (Northampton, MA), 2002.

(With Umberto Lago and Alessandro Baroncelli) Il business del calcio, Egea (Milan, Italy), 2004.

(Editor, with Wladimir Andreff) Handbook on the Economics of Sport, Edward Elgar (Northampton MA), 2005.

(With Andrew Zimbalist) National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer, Brookings Institution Press (Washington, DC), 2005.

Contributor of articles to academic journals, including the European Journal of Political Economy, Economic Polity, Journal of Industrial Economics, Review of Industrial Organization, Journal of Economic Literature, World Economics, Regional Science and Urban Economics, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Marquette Sports Law Review, and International Review of Applied Economics. Contributor to periodicals, including the London Observer, Guardian and Daily Telegraph, and Soccer Analyst. Member of editorial board, Journal of Sports Economics.

SIDELIGHTS:

Stefan Szymanski is a professor and specialist in the economics of team sports and sporting events. He frequently writes on these subjects in academic journals and books. Transatlantic Sport: The Comparative Economics of North American and European Sports "takes comparative looks at the way sports leagues and their teams are organized, financed, and staffed in European and North American contexts," reported Richard M. Devens in the Monthly Labor Review. Szymanski explores in depth the similarities and differences between American and European sports teams, construction of sports leagues, acquisition and dispensation of revenue, and more. He observes how American leagues impose a type of monopoly on the available teams and players, and how revenue is often shared within the professional leagues, with successful teams providing some financial support to less popular or less successful franchises. In contrast, European sports practice a more merit-based system, in which good teams can be rapidly advanced from the lower echelons and poorly performing teams can be just as quickly banished to lesser status. As sports markets become more globalized, Devens concluded, "Transatlantic Sport and the research agenda underlying it will become more and more widely read and recognized."

In National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer, Szymanski and Andrew Zimbalist present another comparative study, this time between the deeply entrenched American obsession with baseball and the equally deep international fascination with soccer (or football, as it is usually called). The authors "compare the development of soccer and baseball from their first moments as organized endeavors more than a century ago," according to New York Times Book Review contributor Jeff Z. Klein. The authors describe the social and business structure of baseball and soccer teams, and they look into how soccer is controlled by British and European sensibilities, while baseball has become closely infused with American culture and business. However, they also identify numerous similarities between the two sports, the business enterprises that nurture them, and the fans that support them. One explanation for the different evolution of the two sports is that the British initially resisted mixing commerce and sport, while American baseball teams and team owners were perfectly willing to play for profit from the beginning. Szymanski and Zimbalist also look at how broadcasting, and revenue from broadcasting, has influenced the later development of soccer and baseball. Library Journal reviewer Morey Berger called it a "worthy sports business book."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Economist, April 30, 2005, "Bat and Ball; Sport," review of National Pastime: How Americans Play Baseball and the Rest of the World Plays Soccer, p. 81.

Library Journal, May 1, 2005, Morey Berger, review of National Pastime, p. 96.

Monthly Labor Review, July, 2003, Richard M. Devens, "Across-the-Pond Sports," review of Transatlantic Sport: The Comparative Economics of North American and European Sports, p. 30.

New York Times Book Review, September 18, 2005, Jeff Z. Klein, "Money Ball," review of National Pastime, p. 29.