August
Ross Booth (1952 - 2024)
A Tribute
Dr Ross Booth, who passed away suddenly on 3 June 2024, was a mentor and friend to countless colleagues and students in the Monash community. Joining the Department of Economics as a Senior Tutor in 1988, Ross completed a PhD in 2000. After promotion to senior lecturer in 2006, Ross served as Course Director for the BCom and BEc at the Clayton and Malaysia campuses.
Ross sits alongside two other great Monash scholars whose teaching and research blended with a passion for sports, in particular Australian Rules football. Historian Ian Turner delivered the annual Ron Barassi (Senior) Memorial Lecture from 1966 to 1978, developing the concept of the ‘Barassi Line’, which separates the parts of Australia where Australian Rules and Rugby League are the most popular football code. Keith Frearson, who taught the core unit in statistics to thousands of economics students from 1968 to 1987, was No 1 ticket holder for South Melbourne Football Club (before it relocated to Sydney), and was a founder and president of the Monash Football Club (Frearson Oval at the Clayton Campus is named for Keith). Ross developed and taught the very popular unit in Sports Economics, offered for many years in degrees at Caulfield, Clayton, and Peninsula. A champion amateur footballer, Ross progressed to commentating on VFA/VFL matches for ABC TV.
Sports economics exists as a field of study because the business of sport differs in several ways to that of conventional business. Sports teams cannot attempt to become a monopoly supplier, as without at least one competitor there is no product to sell. Teams do not exist to maximise profits, as is assumed in conventional models of microeconomics; rather, owners will spend on player wages to maximise the utility derived from winning matches and trophies. And while most non-sport firms seek to develop products that consumers will find to be of consistent, reliable quality, sports leagues will regulate their labour markets to ensure that the result of any match is uncertain, and thus attractive to spectators – a concept known in sports economics as competitive balance.
Ross’s PhD was a study of competitive balance in Australian Rules – this was his main area of research, although he also published articles and chapters on the organisation of sports leagues, governance and sustainability in sports, the economics of major sports events, and the participation of women in sport in scholarly journals, as well as international sports economics handbooks. As a researcher, Ross had an international reputation, and was an active Vice-President of the North American Association of Sports Economists. For over a decade, Ross blended econometrics and economics in a scholarly partnership with Rob Brooks, co-supervising a large number of honours students, and beginning supervision of two PhD students.
- By Associate Professor Lionel Frost.