After reading a recent article about the "steroid era" in baseball, I had a discussion with my roommates about the use and regulation of performance enhancing drugs in sports. One argument that came up was that the use of steroids and PED's should not be regulated in professional sports since they generally create increased scoring and more entertaining games. Since professional sports are really just an entertainment platform, wouldn't more scoring and more athletic players be good for the leagues? As someone who finds baseball painfully boring to watch on TV, I thought about this idea a lot over the next couple days, dreaming of a home run packed MLB. After our class the following week, it hit me why leagues should regulate the use of performance enhancing drugs; they create negative consumption externalities on other players.
If a linebacker in the NFL begins using PED's they will get bigger, faster, and stronger. This means that the offensive players on the other teams will now be getting hit by a player that is more likely to injure them than if he had not taken any performance enhancers. These players are now taking harder hits that put them at an increased risk of injury due to a decision that they played no part in. They are a third party to the transaction between the player who is juicing and his doctor providing the drugs, but they are being negatively affected by the player's consumption of the drugs. Other externalities may also occur due to steroid and PED use in sports. Players using steroids or other PED's may force others to do so as well to stay competitive. The players would be forced to put their health at risk in order to maintain a spot on their team. PED use could also result in clean players earning less than they would if drug testing occurred since PED use would allow those players to perform at an artificially high level and therefore earn a higher share of the salary cap, forcing others to make less.
I believe the externality argument provides the most compelling reason for regulation of substance use in Professional sports. The leagues act as a government in these scenarios and impose fines and other penalties on those who create the externalities in order to make sure the parties responsible are bearing the costs.
1 comment:
I love this point and bummed I missed out on some good "baseball is boring" conversation, but I would like to add a point to this discussion. I think another compelling reason for regulating PEDs would be that, if legal, PED usage would create a prisoner's dilemma for athletes. They benefit more, health wise, in the long run if they stay clean; however, with other athletes' desire to juice they will have to do so or be at a severe disadvantage. So, assuming athletes are all rational and going with their dominant strategies, all players will be using PEDs and it would be a pareto-inefficient nightmare. I'm almost certain people would watch less baseball and the MLB would implode because as an entertainment platform. Professional baseball otherwise known as "The Show" would turn into something more resemblant of a side show. So, either to prevent a prisoner's dilemma or to limit negative consumption externalities I think both are compelling economic reasons to continue with the MLB's policy of regulating PEDs.
Article explaining harmful side effects of steroid usage: https://drugfree.org/learn/drug-and-alcohol-news/performance-enhancing-drugs-can-have-severe-long-term-impact-on-health-expert/
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