In “The Short Supply of Tall People: Competitive Imbalance and the National Basketball Association” (2005), Berri, Brook, Frick, Fenn and Vicente-Mayoral try to provide an explanation for whether a “short supply of tall people is a factor that drives the persistent level of competitive imbalance found in the NBA” (p. 1030). Through testing this hypothesis, the authors attempt to offer a broader view on competitive imbalance in sports, as the traditional literature has generally focused on “only one sport at a time and argued that the distribution of wins is a factor within the reach of league policy” (Berri et al., 2005, p. 1037). To improve the distribution of wins within the league, the institutions have imposed a number of rules, including …show more content…
First, the authors begin with an assessment of “competitive imbalance across a variety of professional team sports” (Berri et al., 2005, p. 1030). Then the authors examine the reasons causing the competitive imbalance according to the statistics derived from the Major League Baseball. After that, they discuss if the supply of population with distinctive characteristic, specifically, “the height requirement in the NBA” (Berri et al., 2005, p. 1034), will have an impact on the variability in performance and hence the competitive …show more content…
1034) even with expanding populations. They base their reasons on the fact that “there is no amount of training, though, that can make a person taller” (Berri et al., 2005, p. 1034). As a result, the height limitation in the NBA reduces the supply of labour and therefore the competitive imbalance will not be improved. Using “points scored” (Berri et al., 2005, p. 1035) that are closely tied to “player salaries” (p. 1035), as well as “a player’s overall productivity on a per minute basis” (p. 1035), the authors aim to determine if there is a relationship between the player performance and the height of the player. The results demonstrate that “there is a short supply of quality tall players” (Berri et al., 2005, p. 1036). However, the answers are incomplete in a way since it assumes height requirement is the only factor that reduces the size of the player population and that the competitive balance will not be altered by the league rules and regulations. The shortcomings in the answers are that they have not considered other factors that can contribute to reduction in population size and the competitive