IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ebl/ecbull/eb-21-00057.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

American Baseball Fans Do Not Influence Game Outcomes

Author

Listed:
  • Timothy E. Zimmer

    (University Of Indianapolis)

  • Allison Snyder

    (University of Indianapolis)

  • Lawrence Bukenya

    (University of Indianapolis)

Abstract

The paper examines U. S. Major League Baseball (MLB) data to evaluate home-field advantage and the relationship between fan attendance and game outcomes. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, fans were not allowed in stadiums during the 2020 MLB regular season. The results indicate the absence of fans did not statistically alter home-field advantage when controlling for quality of play.

Suggested Citation

  • Timothy E. Zimmer & Allison Snyder & Lawrence Bukenya, 2021. "American Baseball Fans Do Not Influence Game Outcomes," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 41(2), pages 741-750.
    • Handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-00057
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.accessecon.com/Pubs/EB/2021/Volume41/EB-21-V41-I2-P67.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel R. Marburger, 1997. "Optimal ticket pricing for performance goods," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(5), pages 375-381.
    2. Babatunde Buraimo, 2008. "Stadium attendance and television audience demand in English league football," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(6), pages 513-523.
    3. Ira Horowitz, 2007. "If you play well they will come-and vice versa: bidirectional causality in major-league baseball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 93-105.
    4. Anthony C. Krautmann & Lawrence Hadley, 2006. "Dynasties versus pennant races: competitive balance in major league baseball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 287-292.
    5. Whitney, James D, 1988. "Winning Games versus Winning Championships: The Economics of Fan Interest and Team Performance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 703-724, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Michael Christian Leitner & Frank Daumann & Florian Follert & Fabio Richlan, 2023. "The cauldron has cooled down: a systematic literature review on home advantage in football during the COVID-19 pandemic from a socio-economic and psychological perspective," Management Review Quarterly, Springer, vol. 73(2), pages 605-633, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kevin Mongeon & Jason Winfree, 2012. "Comparison of television and gate demand in the National Basketball Association," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(1), pages 72-79, January.
    2. Brown, Katie M. & Salaga, Steven, 2018. "NCAA football television viewership: Product quality and consumer preference relative to market expectations," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 377-390.
    3. Schreyer, Dominik & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Torgler, Benno, 2016. "Against all odds? Exploring the role of game outcome uncertainty in season ticket holders’ stadium attendance demand," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 192-217.
    4. Knut Løyland & Vidar Ringstad, 2009. "On the Price and Income Sensitivity of the Demand for Sports: Has Linder’s Disease Become More Serious?," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(6), pages 601-618, December.
    5. Ira Horowitz, 2007. "If you play well they will come-and vice versa: bidirectional causality in major-league baseball," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 93-105.
    6. Young Hoon Lee, 2009. "The Impact of Postseason Restructuring on the Competitive Balance and Fan Demand in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(3), pages 219-235, June.
    7. Chien-Ping Chen, 2009. "A Puzzle or a Choice: Uniform Pricing for Motion Pictures at the Box," Atlantic Economic Journal, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 37(1), pages 73-85, March.
    8. Stephan Lenor & Liam J. A. Lenten & Jordi McKenzie, 2016. "Rivalry Effects and Unbalanced Schedule Optimisation in the Australian Football League," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 49(1), pages 43-69, August.
    9. Ira Horowitz & Jim Lackritz, 2012. "Jolting Joe and Charlie Hustle: The Immediate Economic Impact of an Extended Hitting Streak," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 57(1), pages 42-49, May.
    10. Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Football spectator no-show behaviour in the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(45), pages 4882-4901, September.
    11. Stefan Szymanski, 2021. "On the Incidence of an Ad Valorem Tax: The Adoption of VAT in the UK and Cost Pass Through by English Football Clubs," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 37-61, February.
    12. Rodrigo Schneider & Peter Allmen & Garrett Munck, 2022. "The impact of winter Olympic games participation on NHL attendance," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 23(3), pages 253-270, December.
    13. Grimshaw Scott D. & Sabin R. Paul & Willes Keith M., 2013. "Analysis of the NCAA Men’s Final Four TV audience," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(2), pages 115-126, June.
    14. Braun, Erik & Gyimesi, András, 2021. "Van-e esélyük a feljutó csapatoknak a bennmaradásra? Az európai labdarúgó-bajnokságok összehasonlítása az első osztály előnye alapján [Do novice top teams have a chance of remaining?]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(7), pages 863-889.
    15. Tainsky, Scott & Kerwin, Shannon & Xu, Jie & Zhou, Yilun, 2014. "Will the real fans please remain seated? Gender and television ratings for pre-game and game broadcasts," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 190-204.
    16. Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "The Economic Design of Sporting Contests," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: The Comparative Economics of Sport, chapter 1, pages 1-78, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Scott Tainsky & Jie Xu & Brian M. Mills & Steven Salaga, 2016. "How Success and Uncertainty Compel Interest in Related Goods: Playoff Probability and Out-of-Market Television Viewership in the National Football League," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 29-43, February.
    18. Raul Caruso & Francesco Addesa & Marco Di Domizio, 2019. "The Determinants of the TV Demand for Soccer: Empirical Evidence on Italian Serie A for the Period 2008-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 25-49, January.
    19. Scott Tainsky & Jason Winfree, 2010. "Short-Run Demand and Uncertainty of Outcome in Major League Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(3), pages 197-214, November.
    20. Selçuk Özaydın, 2018. "Modelling the European Football Demand for the 2014/2015 Season," Yildiz Social Science Review, Yildiz Technical University, vol. 4(1), pages 39-52.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Baseball; Home-Field_Advantage; Attendance; Fan Influence; Winning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z0 - Other Special Topics - - General
    • C5 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-21-00057. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: John P. Conley (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.