Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-ws8qp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-18T00:15:23.280Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Uncertainty of Outcome and Attendance in College Football: Evidence from Four Conferences

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Rodney Paul
Affiliation:
Department of Sport Management, David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA
Brad R. Humphreys
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada
Andrew Weinbach
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics, Coastal Carolina University, South Carolina, USA

Abstract

The relationship between the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH), where fans prefer games that are expected to be closely contested, and attendance is investigated in four non-AQ football conferences. The teams in these smaller conferences play games against each other and against bigger, more prominent schools in the elite AQ conferences. Using the betting market point spread as a proxy for uncertainty of outcome, two key points concerning the UOH emerge: college football fans in these conferences prefer less uncertainty of outcome both when their team is a home favorite and when their team is a home underdog.

Type
Symposium
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Borland, J., Lye, J. (1992) ‘Attendance at Australian Rules football: A panel study’, Applied Economics, 24(9), pp. 10531058.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coates, D., Humphreys, B. (2010) ‘Week to week attendance and competitive balance in the National Football League’, International Journal of Sport Finance, 5(4), pp. 239252.Google Scholar
Coates, D., Humphreys, B., Zhou, L. (2012) ‘Outcome uncertainty, reference-dependent preferences and live game attendance’, University of Alberta Working Paper 2012-6.Google Scholar
Forrest, D., Simmons, R. (2002) ‘Outcome uncertainty and attendance demand in sport: The case of English soccer’, The Statistician, 51(2), pp. 229241.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fort, R. (2003) ‘Thinking (some more) about competitive balance’, Journal of Sports Economics, 4(4), pp. 280283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Humphreys, B., Watanabe, N. (2012) ‘Competitive balance’, in Kahane, L., Shmanske, S. (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Sports Economics, Volumes I, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Knowles, G., Sherony, K., Haupert, M. (1992) ‘The demand for Major League Baseball: A test of the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis’, American Economist, 36(2), pp. 7280.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehan, J., Nelson, R., Richardson, T. (2007) ‘Competitive balance and game attendance in Major League Baseball’, Journal of Sports Economics, 8(6), pp. 563580.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owen, P., Weatherston, C. (2004) ‘Uncertainty of outcome and Super 12 Rugby Union attendance,’ Journal of Sports Economics, 5(4), pp. 347370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Quirk, J., Fort, R. (1992) Paydirt: The Business of Professional Sports, Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paul, R., Weinbach, A., Weinbach, C. (2003) ‘Fair bets and profitability in college football gambling,’ Journal of Economics and Finance, 27(2), pp. 236242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rascher, D. (1999) ‘A test of the optimal positive production network externality in Major League Baseball’ in Fizel, J., Gustafson, E., Hadley, L. (eds) Sports Economics: Current Research, Westport, CT, Praeger.Google Scholar
Sanderson, A., Siegfried, J. (2003) ‘Thinking about competitive balance’, Journal of Sports Economics, 4(4), pp. 255279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sauer, R. (1998) ‘The economics of wagering markets,’ Journal of Economic Literature, 36(4), pp. 20212064.Google Scholar