 Buying the hype? Assessing the impact of top-drafted rookies on spectator attendance in the NBAEdward Joseph Kelley Applied Economics Letters, 2021, vol. 28, issue 15, 1306-1309 Abstract: Recent sports economics literature has focused on ‘superstar effects,’ or the independent impact of certain exceptional players on fan attendance at live events. This paper investigates the effect of top-drafted rookies on game attendance in the National Basketball Association from the 2012–13 through 2018–19 seasons. Hypothesizing that the nature of modern basketball could lend unique popularity to top draft picks during their rookie seasons, I find that the presence of top-ten draftees on both home and visiting teams is associated with average increases between 150 and 190 spectators per game throughout the second half of their rookie seasons. These marginal effects are statistically indistinguishable from the impact of an additional All-Star player on the visiting team. Unlike previous work, the censored regression model used in this paper accounts for teams’ use of standing room to generate attendance beyond their listed arena capacities, a relevant consideration in over a quarter of the 8,594-game sample. Date: 2021 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:28:y:2021:i:15:p:1306-1309 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2020.1809628 Access Statistics for this article Applied Economics Letters is currently edited by Anita Phillips More articles in Applied Economics Letters from Taylor & Francis Journals |
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