Demand for the Game: The Effect of Competitive Balance and Dynasty Persistence on Attendance in the National Football League
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- Every football fan is familiar with the historic dynasties of the 1970’s Pittsburgh Steelers, the 1980’s San Francisco 49ers, the 1990’s Dallas Cowboys, and the 2000’s New England Patriots. This paper studies how such dynasties in conjunction with competitive balance within and between seasons affect demand for the game. I use time series and panel dataset analysis from 1970 to 2007 to test this uncertainty of outcome hypothesis and measure how changes in competitive balance and dynasty persistence affect change in attendance. The data shows that inter-seasonal competitive balance has increased over time refuting the idea that free agency is detrimental to competitive balance. This paper finds that at the league-level, the measures used in the OLS regression do not capture the aspects of league quality that determine change in attendance. At the team-level, I find that intra-seasonal balance has a much larger effect on attendance than either dynasty persistence or inter-seasonal balance. Absolute quality of the team also plays a role in the magnitude of changes in demand. The results lend mixed support to the claim that the league faces a collective action problem requiring the institution of league rules.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | June 2008 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Pak, Gina L | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Noll, Roger | |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Economics |
Subjects
| Subject | sports economics |
|---|---|
| Subject | football |
| Subject | NFL |
| Subject | competitive balance |
| Subject | dynasty |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Pak, Gina L. (2008). Demand for the Game: The Effect of Competitive Balance and Dynasty Persistence on Attendance in the National Football League. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/tp532cr2654
Collection
Stanford University, Department of Economics, Honors Theses
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