IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jospec/v8y2007i6p563-580.html

Competitive Balance and Game Attendance in Major League Baseball

Author

Listed:
  • James W. Meehan Jr.

    (Colby College)

  • Randy A. Nelson

    (Colby College)

  • Thomas V. Richardson

    (Colby College)

Abstract

This article tests for the effects of a change in competitive balance on attendance at Major League Baseball games using game-level attendance data for the 2000-2002 seasons. Employing the difference between the winning percentages of the home and visiting teams as a measure of competitive balance, the authors find (a) the effects of a change in competitive balance on attendance are not symmetric, (b) the effects of a change in competitive balance increase as a team falls further behind the divisional leader, and (c) the effects of a change in competitive balance decline throughout the season if the home team has a better record than the visiting team but increase if the home team has a worse record than the visiting team.

Suggested Citation

  • James W. Meehan Jr. & Randy A. Nelson & Thomas V. Richardson, 2007. "Competitive Balance and Game Attendance in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 8(6), pages 563-580, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:8:y:2007:i:6:p:563-580
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002506296545
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1527002506296545
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1527002506296545?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin B. Schmidt & David J. Berri, 2001. "Competitive Balance and Attendance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(2), pages 145-167, May.
    2. Donald L. Alexander, 2001. "Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(4), pages 341-355, November.
    3. E. Woodrow Eckard, 2001. "The Origin of the Reserve Clause," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 2(2), pages 113-130, May.
    4. Glenn Knowles & Keith Sherony & Mike Haupert, 1992. "The Demand for Major League Baseball: A Test of the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 36(2), pages 72-80, October.
    5. Rodney Fort & James Quirk, 1995. "Cross-subsidization, Incentives, and Outcomes in Professional Team Sports Leagues," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 1265-1299, September.
    6. 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.
    7. Christopher M. Clapp & Jahn K. Hakes, 2005. "How Long a Honeymoon? The Effect of New Stadiums on Attendance in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 6(3), pages 237-263, August.
    8. Rosen, Sherwin, 1981. "The Economics of Superstars," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 845-858, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. 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.
    2. Brian Mills & Rodney Fort, 2014. "League-Level Attendance And Outcome Uncertainty In U.S. Pro Sports Leagues," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(1), pages 205-218, January.
    3. Stefan Szymanski & Stephanie Leach, 2006. "Tilting the Playing Field (Why a sports league planner would choose less, not more, competitive balance): The case of English Football," Working Papers 0619, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    4. Budzinski, Oliver & Feddersen, Arne, 2015. "Grundlagen der Sportnachfrage: Theorie und Empirie der Einflussfaktoren auf die Zuschauernachfrage," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 94, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    5. Hayley Jang & Young Hoon Lee & Rodney Fort, 2019. "Winning In Professional Team Sports: Historical Moments," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 57(1), pages 103-120, January.
    6. Kelly Goossens, 2006. "Competitive balance in european football: comparison by adapting measures: national measure of seasonal imbalance and Top 3," Rivista di Diritto ed Economia dello Sport, Centro di diritto e business dello Sport, vol. 2(2), pages 77-122, Dicembre.
    7. Marc Dubois, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Post-Print hal-04692979, HAL.
    8. Yang-Ming Chang & Shane Sanders, 2009. "Pool Revenue Sharing, Team Investments, and Competitive Balance in Professional Sports A Theoretical Analysis," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 10(4), pages 409-428, August.
    9. Robert J. Lemke & Matthew Leonard & Kelebogile Tlhokwane, 2010. "Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 316-348, June.
    10. Trung Minh Dang & Ross Booth & Robert Brooks & Adi Schnytzer, 2015. "Do TV Viewers Value Uncertainty of Outcome? Evidence from the Australian Football League," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 91(295), pages 523-535, December.
    11. Allen R. Sanderson & John J. Siegfried, 2003. "Thinking about Competitive Balance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 4(4), pages 255-279, November.
    12. Mario Lackner, 2016. "Teams as Superstars: Effort and Risk Taking in Rank-Order Tournaments for Women and Men," Economics working papers 2016-13, Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria.
    13. B Buraimo & R Simmons, 2006. "Market size and attendance in English Premier League football," Working Papers 574562, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    14. Stefan Szymanski & Stephen F. Ross, 2007. "Governance And Vertical Integration In Team Sports," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 25(4), pages 616-626, October.
    15. Meletakos, Panagiotis & Chatzicharistos, Dimitrios & Apostolidis, Nikolaos & Manasis, Vasilios & Bayios, Ioannis, 2016. "Foreign players and competitive balance in Greek basketball and handball championships," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 391-401.
    16. Kevin Alavy & Alison Gaskell & Stephanie Leach & Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "On the Edge of Your Seat: Demand for Football on Television and the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 5(2), pages 75-95, May.
    17. Paul Madden, 2008. "Price, quality and welfare consequences of alternative club objectives in a professional sport league," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0802, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    18. Jigyu Chung & Young Hoon Lee & Joon-Ho Kang, 2016. "Ex Ante and Ex Post Expectations of Outcome Uncertainty and Baseball Television Viewership," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(8), pages 790-812, December.
    19. Dubois, Marc, 2022. "Dominance criteria on grids for measuring competitive balance in sports leagues," Mathematical Social Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 1-10.
    20. Jeffery Borland, 2003. "Demand for Sport," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 478-502, Winter.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    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:sae:jospec:v:8:y:2007:i:6:p:563-580. 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: SAGE Publications (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.