Customer preferences, attendance and the racial structure of professional basketball teams

Abstract

This paper examines the importance of customer-based discrimiantion in professional basketball over the 1980–81 to 1985–86 seasons. Empirical rsesults offer strong support of the hypothesis that, if fans prefer to see players of their own race, teams will be influenced in their selection of players by the racial composition of their market area. By the same token, attendance is found to be positively related to the extent to which the racial composition of the team matches that of the corresponding market area.