Brian Mills studied at St. Mary's College of Maryland before moving to the University of Michigan for his graduate work. There, he earned three masters, in Sport Management, Statistics, and Applied Economics, before completing his doctoral work in Sport Management. Dr. Mills has published extensively on labor and market power in professional sports, and his research has been widely covered in the popular press, such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, ESPN, and Sport Illustrated. Today, Dr. Mills is a Research Fellow for the North American Society for Sport Management, and teaches both graduate and undergraduate classes in Sport Economics, Sport Finance, Strategy, and Statistics.
Ph.D. in Sport Management, University of Michigan, 2012
M.A. in Applied Economics, University of Michigan, 2012
M.A. in Statistics, University of Michigan, 2011
M.A. in Sport Management, University of Michigan, 2008
B.A. in Psychology, St. Mary's College of Maryland, 2006
Studies managerial economics in sport relating to the market power of pro sports leagues under three primary branches: industrial organization, labor markets, and public policy and economic development.
Mills, B. (2021). A peculiarity that positions sport management. Journal of Sport Management.
Finegan, D., Mills, B. & Stone, D. (2020). Pulling starters. Journal of Behavioral & Experimental Economics.
Peeters, T., Mills, B., Pennings, E. & Sung, H. (2019). Manager migration, learning-by-hiring, and cultural distance in international soccer. Global Strategy Journal.
Mills, B. & Salaga, S. (2018). A natural experiment for efficient markets: Information quality and influential agents. Journal of Financial Markets, 40, 23–39.
Mills, B. & Winfree, J. (2018). Athlete pay and competitive balance in college athletics. Review of Industrial Organization, 52, 211–229.
Mills, B., Tainsky, S., Green, C. & Leopkey, R. (2018). The ultimatum game in the college football rivalry context. Journal of Sport Management, 32, 11–23.
Sung, H. & Mills, B. (2018). Estimation of game-level attendance in Major League Soccer: Outcome uncertainty and absolute quality considerations. Sport Management Review, 21, 519–532.
Wendling, E. & Mills, B. (2018). Mitigation of relative age effects through targeted policy intervention: A natural experiment from U.S. tennis. Social Science Quarterly, 99, 1496–1509.
Mills, B. (2017). Policy changes in Major League Baseball: Improved agent behavior and ancillary productivity outcomes. Economic Inquiry, 55, 1104–1118.
Mills, B. (2017). Technological innovations in monitoring and evaluation: Evidence of performance impacts among Major League Baseball umpires. Labour Economics, 46, 189–199.
Mills, B. & Winfree, J. (2016). Market power, exclusive rights, and substitution effects in sports. The Antitrust Bulletin, 6, 423–433.
Mills, B. & Rosentraub, M. (2014). The National Hockey League and cross-border fandom: Travel costs, relocation, and international boundaries. Journal of Sports Economics, 15, 497–518.
Mills, B. & Fort, R. (2014). League-level attendance and outcome uncertainty in the NBA, NFL and NHL. Economic Inquiry, 52, 205–218.
