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Do Fans Matter? The Effect of Attendance on the Outcomes of Major League Baseball Games

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  • Smith Erin E

    (New York University)

  • Groetzinger Jon D.

    (SeatGeek)

Abstract

We examine the role of attendance in home-field advantage for Major League Baseball, using a dataset of all MLB games played from 1996 to 2005. Using two-stage least squares, we find that attendance has a significant effect on the home-field advantage. Our results indicate that a one standard deviation increase in attendance results in a 4% increase in the likelihood of a home team win. We also find that if attendance as a percent of stadium capacity were to increase by 48%, we would expect the home team's run differential to increase by one run. We show that the additional home-field advantage is driven by increased home team performance.

Suggested Citation

  • Smith Erin E & Groetzinger Jon D., 2010. "Do Fans Matter? The Effect of Attendance on the Outcomes of Major League Baseball Games," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 6(1), pages 1-24, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:6:y:2010:i:1:n:4
    DOI: 10.2202/1559-0410.1192
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Yiwen Xu & Ying Wang & Yang Yang, 2024. "The Impact of Air Pollution on Game Outcome," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(5), pages 557-582, June.
    2. La, Vincent, 2014. "Home Team Advantage in the NBA: The Effect of Fan Attendance on Performance," MPRA Paper 54579, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Justin Ehrlich & Joel Potter, 2023. "Estimating the effect of attendance on home advantage in the National Basketball Association," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(11), pages 1471-1482, June.
    4. Carlos Alberto Belchior, 2020. "Fans and Match Results: Evidence From a Natural Experiment in Brazil," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(7), pages 663-687, October.
    5. Mike Hsu, 2024. "Umpire Home Bias in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(4), pages 423-442, May.
    6. Doyle Joanne M. & Leard Benjamin, 2012. "Variations in Home Advantage: Evidence from the National Hockey League," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 8(2), pages 1-27, June.
    7. David K. Levine & Salvatore Modica & Junze Sun, 2023. "Twin peaks: Expressive externality in group participation," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 25(5), pages 897-929, October.
    8. Colella, Fabrizio & Dalton, Patricio & Giusti, G., 2018. "You'll Never Walk Alone : The Effect of Moral Support on Performance," Other publications TiSEM 1dac53ca-9483-48f5-84b0-0, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. Trandel Gregory A & Maxcy Joel G, 2011. "Adjusting Winning-Percentage Standard Deviations and a Measure of Competitive Balance for Home Advantage," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-17, January.
    10. Scott C Ganz & Kieran Allsop, 2024. "A Mere Fan Effect on Home-Court Advantage," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(1), pages 30-53, January.
    11. Adam Cook, 2026. "The 12th Man Plays Defense: The Effects of Heterogeneous COVID-19 NFL Stadium Attendance Restrictions," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 27(1), pages 27-56, January.

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