Examining Determinants of Sport Event Attendance: A Multilevel Analysis of a Major League Baseball Season

Abstract

Attendance data in sports leagues are organized at more than one level and thus are nested data with factors varying by individual games (e.g. single game attendance figure), which are nested within the factors varying by teams (e.g. local population and income level, stadium). Such a nested data structure requires a multilevel modeling approach for an accurate examination of attendance. Also, although the previous application of multilevel modeling to sport attendance research has been limited to the data aggregated and averaged by seasons or by teams, no multilevel modeling of attendance data at the individual game level is available. The uniqueness of the current study is its extension of the multilevel modeling approach by analyzing the audience data at the individual game level. Thus, this study examined the relationship between attendance determinants and single game attendance in a Major League Baseball (MLB) season by using multilevel modeling with 14 game level variables and 12 team level variables. Twelve predictors (e.g. home/visiting team playoff appearances, day of game, season progress, ticket price, stadium capacity, game uncertainty) significantly (p < .05) influenced attendance.

摘要考察体育赛事出席率的决定因素:美国职业棒球大联盟海域的多层次分析

体育联赛的出勤率数据是在一个以上级别上组织的, 因此是嵌套的数据, 其中的因素因个别比赛而异(例如, 单项比赛的出勤率), 而嵌套的因素则因队而异(例如, 当地人口和收入水平, 体育场)。这种嵌套的数据结构需要多层次的建模方法来精确地检查考勤。此外, 虽然以前在体育考勤研究中应用多级建模的应用仅限于按季节或按队汇总和平均的数据, 但目前还没有在单个游戏级别上对考勤数据进行多级建模。当前研究的独特性在于通过分析单个游戏层面的观众数据, 对多层次建模方法的拓展。因此, 本研究通过使用14个游戏级别变量和12个团队级别变量的多层次模型来检验大联盟(MLB)赛季的出勤率决定因素与单场出勤率之间的关系。12个预测因子(例如, 主场/客队季后赛出场、比赛日期、赛季进度、票价、球场容量、比赛不确定性)显著影响出席率 (p < .05)。

Keywords:

• Attendance
• attendance determinants
• MLB
• multilevel modeling
• hierarchical linear regression modeling

关键词：:

• 考勤
• 考勤决定因素
• 大联盟
• 多级建模
• 分层线性回归建模

Acknowledgements

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Namhun Lim

Namhun Lim (Ph.D., Indiana University Bloomington, U.S.) is a Visiting Researcher in Department of Sport Management at Wichita State University. Dr. Lim’s research interests include the financial management and data analysis of the sport industry, and economic impact and development related to sport, especially, sport event attendance and ticket prices associated with social economic factors.

Paul M. Pedersen

Paul M. Pedersen (Ph.D., Florida State University, U.S.) is a Professor and Director of Sport Management at Indiana University-Bloomington. Dr. Pedersen is the founding editor of the International Journal of Sport Communication (IJSC) and an editorial board member of 10 other academic journals. Based on this previous work as a sportswriter and sports business columnist he has primary scholarly interests in the area of sport communication within the field of sport management. Dr. Pedersen has published eight books and 96 articles in peer-reviewed academic outlets.