FiT Publishing

Giveaways such as jerseys, caps, or bobbleheads are part of a host of promotions used to entice fans to purchase tickets and attend live events, particularly in sports. Bobbleheads have often been viewed as the bellwether giveaway in demand-side analytical studies as they are common across sport, league, and team and are viewed as highly prized collectable items. Empiricists typically code promotions as binary variables to measure the impact these additional perks have on attendance, yet each bobblehead event features a distinct figurine distinguished by several previously unexplored...Read more

A balanced panel (99 teams over 40 years) is used to estimate three regression models: average attendance via fixed and random effects plus Tobit estimation of percent of capacity. Variables are either stationary or cointegrated. Estimation makes adjustments for serial correlation and endogeneity between several variables. Independent variables measure economic conditions, demographic characteristics, and team performance. Attendance is a normal good. Travel cost is insignificant in two models but positive in one. Weak evidence suggests undergraduate enrollment and county population exert...Read more

Home advantage has been documented in many sports. It is hypothesized that higher attendance, likely dominated by home-team supporters, can be a source of this advantage, either through influence on match officials or by spurring the home team to greater efforts relative to the away team. We examine this latter hypothesis using a dataset of 1,030 matches over eight seasons, 2012/2013 to 2019/2020, of the Pro14, one of the three major European rugby union leagues. Our results initially display strong evidence of home advantage. However, once we control for team quality, home advantage is...Read more

Reported attendance for most sport events is based on tickets disseminated, not actual number of spectators who physically enter the venue. Yet nearly all live sport event demand studies are based on reported attendance rather than the actual attendance. The current study examines multiple measures of home game attendance for NCAA Division I college football programs as reported from both game box scores and post-event scanned ticket audits provided to The Wall Street Journal. Regression models are utilized to examine factors that have a statistically significant relationship with...Read more

This study investigates the impact of restricted crowds caused by the COVID-19 pandemic on the margin of victory of games in the NBA. Using 12,500 game-level observations from 11 NBA seasons from 2010/11 to 2020/21, the study first shows that during the COVID-19 season of 2020/21, games had a greater average margin of victory than any of the prior seasons. Regression results reveal that games played in front of restricted crowds were more likely to be won by a margin of 15, 20, or 25 points than games played in front of non-restricted crowds. The results indicate similar effects for games...Read more

In this study, we estimate an attendance demand model in a reduced form, with uncertainty as one of the determinants of demand, to test the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH). Data from the Russian Football Premier League (RFPL) are used. These data fit our requirements for two reasons. First, there are few sellout matches, so demand for tickets in the RFPL is not restricted by stadium capacity. Secondly, there have been no articles devoted to the study of outcome uncertainty in the RFPL. The results indicate that the UOH does not explain the behavioral pattern of attendees in the...Read more

While assessment of team-level marketing performance for a professional sport franchise is important for both the team marketer and the researcher to develop a marketing strategy and understand marketing performance, no evidence using a full set of teams for a long period of time currently exists. We propose that marketing performance can be estimated with a stochastic frontier model. Using twenty seasons of Major League Baseball (MLB) attendance data, we estimate the frontier attendance (i.e., the maximal Which Professional Sport Team Has the Best Marketing Performance in Driving...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

Understanding what leads individuals to consume the product of sport is central to the study of the sport management discipline. Though the study of sport consumer behavior benefits from an extensive body of work, many key issues (e.g., external validity concerns) still require attention. This meta-analysis provides a comprehensive and systematic empirical review of the sport (mostly team sport) attendance literature. Specifically, this study examines the relationship between three categories of predictors (fan-focused, relation-ship-focused, and product-focused) and sport attendance. Also...Read more

This paper investigates factors that contribute to attendance in Major League Soccer with a primary focus on the effect of repeat rivalry matches during a season. Using ordinary least squares, a panel of 2,193 matches (6 seasons) finds significant effects of a variety of match determinants, including how rivalries are defined in the estimation. With an increased focus on creating rivalries, the data supports potential diminishing returns from overscheduling of rivalry matches. Fans and leagues appear to place a high value on scheduling rivalry matches, however it appears these impacts are...Read more