FiT Publishing

This study aims to analyze fans’ demand for live football matches in the German 2. Bundesliga, focusing on match-outcome uncertainty. To examine the decision to attend sporting events, a fixed effects regression and the Tobit model were used to test the uncertainty of game outcomes and reference-dependent preferences with loss aversion. The estimated fans’ demand for attending live football matches is represented by the logged attendance of 2,442 matches from the 2010/2011 to the 2017/2018 seasons of the 2. Bundesliga. Our findings indicate that fans prefer certain game outcomes over...Read more

This study tests the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis for single games and playoff appearances in the Korean Professional Baseball League from 2007 to 2015. Our panel data analysis shows that the difference in winning percentages between two teams and playoff uncertainty based on games behind are important factors for increasing game attendance. This study supports the potential importance of analyzing daily game attendance of the literature on diverse sport leagues. It also presents implications for policymakers and league owners—which typically leverage teams as promotional instruments—...Read more

A substantial number of empirical analyses of attendance at team sports events have been devoted to testing the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis, according to which the interest of fans is positively influenced by the degree of uncertainty of an outcome. The results, however, have turned out to be inconclusive. This article examines a possible explanation based on the flaws of the testing method. I show that results consistent with the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis can be obtained even when attendance is solely determined by the quality of the competing teams. The reason for this is...Read more

Ever since the pioneering work of Rottenberg (1956) and Neale (1964), the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH) has played a major role in the economic analysis of professional sport leagues. However, decades of empirical research have not been successful in establishing clear evidence for the importance of competitive balance (CB) for attendance or TV viewers in European professional football. In order to find possible reasons for the gap between the UOH and (the lack of) its empirical validation, our paper adopts a stated preference approach focused on the fans’ perception of CB and...Read more