PAGE 4, THE BEHREND BEACON, NOVEMBER 12, 1999
Fizel disproves common
myths of sports economics
by Jason Snyder
editor-in-chief
On Thursday, November 4, Be
hrend opened its 1999-2000
Provost's Speaker Series with a lec
ture from Dr. John Fizel of the
School of Business. His lecture was
titled, "The Myth of Sports: The
Role of Economics," in which he dis
cussed the role of money in athletics
and argued how money in sports to
day isn't as out of hand as people
may think.
Dr. Fizel graduated from Michi
gan State University and has since
studied the economics of sports. He
is the co-editor of Sports Economics
and Baseball Economics. His stud
ies have mostly dealt with baseball,
which led to his lecture beiniz based
on a nine inning game.
Fizel broke his lecture into nine in-
nings, using each inning to argue and
disprove certain myths about the
economics of sports. He talked
about ticket prices, the demand for
sports. the value of athletes. the busi
ness of franchises, free agency. sta
diums and college scholarships. To
Web-based interactive program gets a "head start" at Behrend
by Rebecca Weindorf
staff writer
A web-based interactive program
that involves the practice and improve
ment of spatial abilities is currently in
the making at Penn State Behrend.
Dr. Dawn Blasko, assistant profes
sor of experimental psychology, and
Kathryn Holliday-Darr. instructor of
engineering graphics, have been work
ing on the program in order to improve
spatial abilities that are important to
many careers. Also involved in the
project are fourteen students vv ho are
Psychology and Engineering majors . ,
each student contributes to the re
search. ideas and activities for the pro
gram.
" Ms. Holliday-Darr and I have been
working on this project for awhile
now," said Dr. Blasko. "The FELT
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make the sports fanatics in atten
dance feel more at home, he played
Harry Carey's rendition of - Take me
to the
and
out
ballgaine
ended his lecture in
the ninth inning
opening his presenta
tion to the audience
for a question and an-
saver segment
Throughout the
lecture. Fizel pointed
out why people are
wrong when they
complain about the
direction sports is
taking as a business.
He started with ticket
prices: although
ticket prices have in
creased since the
19505, the
affordability of tick-
ets has become more possible to the
average family , of four. Fitel argued
that. in the 19505. an average family
with an average income could afford
(with no other expenses) about
1.000 pro sports tickets a year.
proposal we had to make I for approval
of project] NA as taken dm:, nto UM
\ ersity Park, and FTS t Fducatio ,
Technology Services) decided to
give us a one-year grant to help us
out, until next summer
The project. more formal I
know n as "Improving Cognitive Vi
sualization with a Weh-Based Inter
active Assessment and Training Pro-
gram, - NA as a way to get more
people involved in using and im
proving their spatial abilities.
"At this point, we initially plan
to release this program to college
students, and then hupetull to ado
lescents (students still in middle
schools and high schoolsr said Dr.
Blasko. the program will he able
to do a wide range of things, includ
ing testing and constant improve
ment. Its purpose is to he a learn-
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Now, the same family can afford
about 55,000 tickets, proving that
families these days can attend more
sporting events for
less money, taking
into account the rise
\
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if&
lion/year. After a
successful season for San Francisco,
\\ here Bonds directly contributed,
the Giants pulled in $2O million to
the organization-a profit of $l3 mil
lion. 01 the total money that teams
make, athletes only receive 14%-
In center and to let students test them
sek es on their spatial abilities, and
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in family incomes.
When tackling the
issue of professional
athletes being over
paid, Fizel pointed
out the story of
Barry Bonds and his
journey from the
Pittsburgh Pirates to
the San Francisco
Giants. While in
Pittsburgh, Bonds
was being paid $5
million/vear. When
he went to the Gi
ants, his salary was
increased to $7 mil-
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17% of their true value
Depite the words of team owners,
Fizel showed that sports franchises,
for the most part, aren't losing money
because of high player salaries. Less
than six MLB and eight NBA teams
are actually losing money, in com
parison to the 15-20 that team own
ers claim are losing money. In 1998,
the L.A. Dodgers gained $3OO mil
lion.
The argument that free agency up
sets the competitive balance in sports
leagues was also disputed by Fizel,
who said that free agency helps bal
ance the competition. He hacked up
this point by stating that there have
been 18 different teams in the World
Series in the past 20 years. Any foot
ball fan can see that also, with the
rate the NFL is going this year.
Overall, Fizel brought many ques
tions to the table about the econom
ics of sports and certain myths that
have come about through time.
The next speaker in the Provost's
Speaker Series will be Dr. Michael
A. Campbell on March 16. He lec
ture is titled "Can Undergraduates do
Significant Research'?"
include visualization and manipulation
of objects in one's mind, and accord-
Dr. Blaskf
Housing and Food Services
plans for housing contracts
by Karl Benacci
staff writer
It may only be the beginning of
November now, but the holiday sea
son is just around the corner. Soon
after on-campus Behrend students
return from Christmas break, they
will need to submit their housing con
tracts for the 2000-2001 academic
year. Unlike previous years, submit
ting housing contracts will be done
in a housing lottery.
Two years ago, 200 students
waited in the cold outside of the
Housing and Food Services office to
submit their contract. There were not
any major problems, but housing de
cided to move the "wait" to the Reed
Commons so that students would not
have to wait in the cold.
Last year's housing contract camp
out, however, was different from
years past. The plan was for the doors
of the Reed Commons to open at 9:30
p.m. The contracts would then be
taken at 6:00 a.m.
When the doors were open at 9:30
p.m. there were nearly 300 students
waiting in line. Some of the problems
that occurred were line cutting, push
ing and name-calling.
To avoid this difficulty, a commit-
tial abilities can he improved. "One
way we hope to do this is to develop a
type of progressive program that lets
the student log onto the program and
pick up where they left off. Spatial
abilities are difficult; we want to show
that not everyone is a natural at this,
or that some people simply can't do
it. They (spatial abilities) are ex
tremely important for several careers,
especially in engineering and visual
arts," Dr. Blasko said.
Ms. Holliday-Darr, who is chiefly
involved with developing the program
and its interactive abilities, shows that
this program is not easy to make. The
complex graphics, links, and numer
ous tests that need to be developed to
be truly interactive takes time and
imagination. Along with the team of
students from numerous classes (rang
ing from a First-Year Seminar to MET
tee of five students met with Hous
ing and Food Services so that a new
process could be made regarding the
submission of housing contracts by
returning students. The committee
decided to do a housing draw. Con
tracts can be submitted the week of
January 17-21.
The contracts will then be drawn
in a lottery, which has not yet been
decided how the numbers will be
drawn or determined.
The committee is still planning the
housing lottery, but they are nearly
finished with the initial planning.
The only concern is if your num
ber isn't pulled and there is no space
left on campus, which would result
in a student having to live off-cam
pus. That shouldn't be a problem,
though, because there are 874 spaces
in residence halls.
The committee will be visiting all
of the residence halls for a floor meet
ing to discuss the housing lottery. On
campus students will get a contract
in their on-campus mailbox shortly
after Christmas break.
The lottery will occur shortly after
the week of January 17-21. More in
formation on the housing lottery will
be given by Housing and Food Ser
vices and at floor meetings.
and PLET), the development of the
program is a painstaking process. As
a result, there is no set date as to when
the program will be finished; Ms.
Holliday-Darr, Dr. Blasko, and the
team of fourteen students hope to de
velop the program carefully and with
as many activities they can think of.
In the future, server space and other
experts are going to be needed to fully
build and support the program. An
other innovative idea for the program
is looking into virtual reality and be
ing able to fully interact in the pro
gram. Concerns, for this idea, though,
are the compatibility with home com
puters and the complexity of virtual re
ality coming to several students who
may use it. For more information on
this ongoing project, you can visit the
Web for more details at http://
cuc.psu.edu/ets/catalog/fti2oo.html.