This paper explores the demand for attendance at professional sporting events using a data set that includes ticket prices and a price index reflecting prices for ancillary goods associated with attendance. Previous research has focused on attendance at Major League Baseball games, but this study also includes attendance at NBA and NFL contests. The analysis largely confirms existing findings that attendance demand is price inelastic, a result that is often thought to be at odds with the monopoly status of professional sports franchises. The analysis shows that ticket pricing in the inelastic portion of the demand curve is consistent with revenue maximization by monopoly teams that also set prices for related goods and services like concessions and parking closer to the elastic portion of the demand curve.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.