Are NFL teams getting the most out of their wins? The Efficiency of Year End Revenues of Ten NFL Teams

Abstract

Major sports have taken over many prominent industries in today's world. With the economic impact of athletics comes its evolution from a spectator event into a business. Each team in the major leagues is now not only pressured to produce winsbut as a business, they must also bring in revenue. This means that efficiencyof funds is a vital goal of team managers and financial specialists. Thisresearch projectexaminesthe effects of various factors on year-end revenues for the top ten most valuable teams in the National Football League. Through the use of a DEA model that analyzes such inputs as income, team record and stand out players we areable to determine how efficiently each team is performing based on their revenues, or the output. Of the 10 teams studied, 5 were deemed efficient while 5 were deemed inefficient.Teams that didnot see successful revenue reports were analyzed based on their weaknesses and offered recommendations on which to improve where efficient teams were used a comparison. Ultimately, the goal of this research is to identify factors to improve revenue efficiency across the league as a whole by looking at the top performing teams (or best practices).