Vliv platového stropu v NHL na vyrovnanost soutěže

The aim of the bachelor thesis is to analyze the impact of the salary cap on the players costs and competitive balance the National Hockey League. Firstly, I introduce the terms related to salary cap. It is followed by characterization of the development of salary caps in sports leagues in North America. The thesis also focuses on clarifying the theoretical foundations in favor of the implementation of salary cap. I describe the microeconomic model from which the theoretical foundations arise. The theoretical implications of a salary cap are presented based on previous literature. Both previous studies and the theoretical model suggest that the introduction of salary cap has two main motivations: to balance the competition and to lower player costs. I examine the effect of the salary cap empirically after the introduction in the 2005 in the National Hockey League. I focus on the changes that the introduction meant to various statistical indicators. The implementation of the salary cap leads to these conclusions. Regular season competition became more balanced after the 2005 salary cap. However, competitive balance in playoffs did not grow, contradicting the theoretical suggestion. League-wide player costs decreased after the salary cap but the growth in salaries rapidly revoked the decrease.