The Impact of Technology and Rule Changes on Elite Swimming Performances
We use the annual ranking of the top 100 performers in the world that the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) publishes to study the impact the LZR Racer swimsuit and the deregulation of the use of dolphin kicking in breaststroke had on swimming
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The Impact of Technology and Rule Changes on Elite Swimming Performances Todd A. McFall, Amanda L. Griffith, and Kurt W. Rotthoff
If you’ve got a spare $550, a couple of friends to zip you up, and you really need to take a second or two off your 200 butterfly time, this is the suit for you. —Susan Casey, Sports Illustrated
Abstract We use the annual ranking of the top 100 performers in the world that the Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) publishes to study the impact the LZR Racer swimsuit and the deregulation of the use of dolphin kicking in breaststroke had on swimming performances. The swimsuit innovation, which was legal to use in 2008 and 2009, impacted performances across the sport such that improvement in the years swimmers could use any variation of the suit was significantly larger than in the years before it was created and after it was banned. The change in rules dictating legal motions swimmers could use while competing in breaststroke events, which occurred in 2015, caused improvement in breaststroke races to be significantly bigger than in races that involve the other strokes. We close by discussing the importance of FINA’s decisions on regulating technology and monitoring innovation within the sport.
We wish to thank Chris Avallone and Sarah Peljovich for the help they provided researching this topic. We also appreciate helpful suggestions from audience members who heard variations of this chapter at the 2019 Eastern Economic Association Meetings and the 2019 Western Economic Association Meetings.
T. A. McFall (*) · A. L. Griffith Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, USA e-mail: [email protected] K. W. Rotthoff Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 J. S. Harris (ed.), The Economics of Aquatic Sports, Sports Economics, Management and Policy 17, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-52340-4_9
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Introduction Economists from all branches of the discipline have been interested in better understanding the roles that technological innovations or regulatory changes have played in influencing economic growth or market outcomes. Indeed, the earliest lessons of many introductory economics classes ask students to ponder the benefits and trade- offs after innovations or regulatory changes affected various aspects of peoples’ lives. Although much of the focus of sports economics has been on the idea of competitive balance and the impact that leagues’ organizational structures have on competitive outcomes, others examine the extent to which performances in sporting contests are affected by technological innovations or rule changes. In baseball, Groothuis, Rotthoff, and Strazicich (2015) examine data on player’s performance for evidence of structural breaks in the way the game was played. Munasinghe, O’Flaherty, and Danninger (2001) examine the effects of globalization on performances in track and field. Finally, McFall and Treme (2012) study the way professional golfers changed their risk strategies following a rule change
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