Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season

Robert J. Lemke, Matthew Leonard and Kelebogile Tlhokwane
Additional contact information
Robert J. Lemke: Lake Forest College, lemke@lakeforest.edu
Matthew Leonard: Lake Forest College
Kelebogile Tlhokwane: Lake Forest College

Journal of Sports Economics, 2010, vol. 11, issue 3, 316-348

Abstract: Using games from Major League Baseball’s 2007 season, individual game attendance is estimated using censored normal regression with home-team fixed-effects. Included in the model are several factors affecting attendance, such as divisional and interleague rivalries, that to date have been omitted from the literature. The relationship between attendance and game characteristics is shown to be fundamentally different between small market and large market teams. Attendance is also shown to steadily increase as the probability that the home team will win the game increases, which stands in contrast to the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis that predicts that attendance will eventually decrease if the home team’s chance of winning the game gets too large.

Keywords: attendance; major league baseball; competitive balance; uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:11:y:2010:i:3:p:316-348

DOI: 10.1177/1527002509337212

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