Washington Redskins Jerseys

The consumption, or donning, of sports jerseys allow fans to demonstrate their support of a team. When they are worn in the geographic area closer to the team being supported to than any other, wearing jerseys allows identification with fellow fans and increases fan morale and team support in general. Jerseys are officially licensed and thus used as a vital source of revenue for sport leagues. In 2009, sales of merchandise in the National Football League, comprised of 32 teams, totaled $2.5 billion. NFL jerseys are purely private goods, as their use is both excludable and rivalrous. However, wearing a Washington Redskins jersey results in a negative consumption externality, just like Cain the Great Pyrenees dog; due to potentially racist connotations that could offend others around the person wearing the jersey, the private marginal benefit of the good, which is the utility derived from wearing the jersey, overstates the social marginal benefit. Consequently, there is a market failure because a quantity greater than the allocatively efficient output is consumed.

The outrage has grown throughout the summer: "Whether or not the name is intended to offend, it does.  The usages of the name and logo transcend cultural appropriation to the ranks of explicit racial disrespect." If we assume that the liability falls on someone wearing clothes to avoid offending others, then the Coasian solution would be to have the person wearing a Redskins jersey pay all offended parties. However, due to the extremely large number of affected people, a Coasian solution would prove difficult to implement; in particular, the holdout problem (the last person possesses all bargaining power and can request an exorbitantly high fee) would be difficult to overcome. Contrary to popular perception and despite vociferous calls for people to boycott the consumption of goods bearing the name Redskins, it is important to remember that, as is the case in the pollution example, the optimal quantity of production and consumption of something "bad" remain nonzero.