The value of competition: competitive balance as a predictor of attendance in spectator sports
International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship
ISSN: 1464-6668
Article publication date: 1 October 2009
Abstract
This paper investigates the role of competitive balance among teams in a league in predicting attendance at spectator sporting events. It also controls for the demographic and economic characteristics of the league's markets, and changes in the number of teams in the league. The research relies on a sample that includes 707 non-major professional team seasonal win-loss records (12,956 games) from five sports, aggregated into 75 seasons to develop a model consistent with extant literature. The authors find that competitive balance and average income in the league's markets are significant predictors of leaguewide attendance.
Keywords
Citation
Levin, M.A. (2009), "The value of competition: competitive balance as a predictor of attendance in spectator sports", International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship, Vol. 11 No. 1, pp. 2-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJSMS-11-01-2009-B002
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2009 by Winthrop Publications Limited