Stewart, Andrew JohnOwens, Rosemary JoanAnderson, KentNichol, Matthew2017-04-272017-04-272017http://hdl.handle.net/2440/104722The globalisation of labour in professional baseball has seen professional teams expand their labour supply beyond national boundaries. Fuelling this trend is the desire to maintain and strengthen the level of competition in professional leagues and to access cheap labour. In this context, the thesis considers the ways in which globalisation has affected the regulation of player mobility, the role of regulatory actors in the regulation of labour mobility in professional baseball and the extent to which the labour of baseball has been commodified. This thesis explores these issues by examining the regulation of labour in three professional baseball leagues and countries: Major League Baseball in the United States, Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan and the Australian Baseball League. Drawing upon theoretical perspectives concerning the nature and purpose of regulatory systems, the thesis attempts to show that the labour rules and practices of each league can violate the legal principle that labour is not a commodity, that is that a player is not property that can be bought and sold. However the leagues adopt different strategies to deal with the effects of globalisation on labour mobility. In addition, the thesis examines labour mobility in each league and how mobility is regulated by contract law, labour law and competition law in each of the three jurisdictions. The thesis also examines the role of internal and external regulatory actors in the regulation of labour in professional baseball. The thesis concludes by proposing a framework for the global regulation of labour in professional baseball that will facilitate both greater labour mobility and access to labour.labour law and regulationlabour mobilityregulatory theoryglobalisationcomparative lawcommoditysports lawbaseballTheses10.4225/55/5901894210720