The Designated Player Policy Rule and Attendance Demand in Major League Soccer

Johan Rewilak

Journal of Sports Economics, 2023, vol. 24, issue 4, 475-496

Abstract: Evidence suggests that Major League Soccer's designated player (DP) rule increased match-day attendance in its inaugural season leading to expansion of this policy. However, there is a need to examine whether these findings are robust. Therefore, this paper uses the DP rule as a natural experiment to identify its effect on match-day attendance using a difference-in-difference estimation strategy. In contrast to existing research, when using a difference-in-difference estimator, the statistically significant effect of DPs on attendance vanishes but may be recovered when omitting domestic DPs from the set of DPs.

Keywords: attendance demand; major league soccer; David Beckham; designated players; superstar effect (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:jospec:v:24:y:2023:i:4:p:475-496

DOI: 10.1177/15270025221134234

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