FiT Publishing

Home field advantage is universally accepted across most major sports and levels of competition. However, exact causes of home field advantage have been difficult to disentangle. The COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique, natural experiment to isolate elements related to home field advantage since all 2020 regular season Major League Baseball games were played without fans. Results provide no statistically significant evidence of a difference in home field advantage between the 2019 and 2020 seasons, evidence that home crowd support is not a driver of home field advantage.There does appear to...Read more

This study explores reasons for the declining share of revenue going to Major League Baseball players. Though the players’ union and team owners have proposed competing explanations, the phenomenon has not received any rigorous academic study. Economic theories for the similar decline of labor share in the macroeconomy provide possible explanations. The ability to estimate baseball players’ marginal revenue products through their performance offers a unique opportunity to examine the role of worker productivity in determining labor’s share of income in general. The analysis indicates that...Read more

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of power state, level of social exclusion, and the individual characteristic of need for uniqueness on consumption choice between viewing Major League Baseball (distinctive option) and the South Korean baseball league (general option) as well as viewing attitudes toward the general option. Binary logistic regression and 2 (power state: high vs. low) x 2 (social state: inclusion vs. exclusion) x 3 (NFU: high vs. medium vs. low) ANOVA were used to test the study hypotheses. Results indicated that first, the need for uniqueness (...Read more

The purpose of the current study was to investigate the effect of power state, level of social exclusion, and the individual characteristic of need for uniqueness on consumption choice between viewing Major League Baseball (distinctive option) and the South Korean baseball league (general option) as well as viewing attitudes toward the general option. Binary logistic regression and 2 (power state: high vs. low) x 2 (social state: inclusion vs. exclusion) x 3 (NFU: high vs. medium vs. low) ANOVA were used to test the study hypotheses. Results indicated that first, the need for uniqueness (...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

This study analyzes wage discrimination in the Korean Baseball Organization (KBO). Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis was used to analyze panel data covering 775 first-team baseball players, teams’ annual attendance, team records, and home city populations in the KBO from 2001 to 2010. The study results showed that wage discrimination based on nationality occurred in the KBO. Both foreign pitchers and foreign position players were paid significantly higher salaries than South Korean players with similar performance records. We also found that the number of foreign pitchers...Read more

A study of the physics of baseball has shown that air density plays a significant role in the distance a batted baseball will travel. Air density is a function of altitude, temperature, humidity, and barometric pressure. This paper tests if air density impacts the totals market in Major League Baseball by influencing the number of runs in a game above and beyond the betting market total. Through regression analysis and betting simulations of the 2012 season, it is shown that air density has an inverse relationship with total runs scored and simple betting strategies are constructed that...Read more

In 2010, a plan to finance a new spring training stadium for the Cubs through a ticket surcharge on all games in the Cactus League was proposed. We find that the Cubs increase attendance when they are the away team by about 37%. Thus, the surcharge would be economically justified as long as the price elasticity of tickets is less than 0.32, which many prior studies find to be the case. This tax provides one of the few examples in which the cost of a subsidized stadium would be born primarily by the group that benefits the most from the arrival of the subsidized team.Read more

This paper investigates the determinants of game-day attendance in the Chinese Professional Baseball League (CPBL) from 2001 to 2007. We include measures of league-level uncertainty and game uncertainty for two rivals at the same time in a quantile regression model. The results support the hypothesis of outcome uncertainties. Closer wins by the competing teams within a league and a smaller gap in terms of the winning percentage between two teams induces more outcome uncertainty, and consequently leads to higher attendance. Moreover, the results of the quantile regression show that these...Read more

Betting market odds for Major League Baseball are used to examine the level of uncertainty of outcome, an ex-ante form of competitive balance. The efficient markets hypothesis cannot be rejected for the years 1990-2006 in Major League Baseball. Therefore, the odds provide an ex-ante measure of the uncertainty of outcome of baseball games in the minds of fans and bettors. The odds for both the American and National Leagues were shown to increase during the 1990s, implying more certainty in the expected outcome of the game. Bettors and fans believed favorites in Major League Baseball were...Read more