Major League Baseball attendance: Evaluating the importance of external factors

Date

2009-12

Journal Title

Journal ISSN

Volume Title

Publisher

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of brand equity in sport on attendance in Major League Baseball. The aspects of brand equity observed in this study were star players, manager stability, stadium age, and win-loss percentage. Star players, manager stability, and win-loss percentage are team-related antecedents to brand equity in sport while stadium age represents an organization-related antecedent. The subjects examined were the New York Yankees, the New York Mets, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Chicago White Sox, and the Chicago Cubs. The subjects were examined by recording each team‟s values for the examined variables from 1962 to 2008. A correlation was run using Pearson‟s r value to test for significant (p < .01) relationships between the independent variables and attendance during the 1962-2008 time period as well as during each observed decade and for each team individually. Results showed that during the span of 1962-2008, star players, manager stability, and win-loss percentage were significantly related to attendance while stadium age was not. It was also found that none of the studied variables played a consistently significant role from decade to decade among the individual subjects. Future research could incorporate teams from smaller markets in order to test the properties of consumers from those markets.

Description

Keywords

Branding (Marketing)

Citation