IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jqsprt/v18y2022i3p161-170n4.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Jumping on the bandwagon? Attendance response to recent victories in the NBA

Author

Listed:
  • Munoz Ercio

    (The World Bank, Washington, DC, USA)

  • Chen Jiadi

    (Fannie Mae, Washington, DC, USA)

  • Thomas Milan

    (Asian Development Bank, Manila, Philippines)

Abstract

This article studies whether a recent victory impacts attendance at sports events. We apply a regression discontinuity design to estimate the local average treatment effect of a win on the attendance of subsequent games in professional basketball. Using National Basketball Association data from seasons 1980–81 to 2017–18, we find that home team fan bases react to recent outcomes, with an increase in attendance of approximately 425 attendants (a 3% boost) following a close win relative to a close loss. The increment is approximately one-eighth of a recent estimate of the superstar effect. We do not find an attendance effect when the visiting team has a recent victory, which provides evidence against the existence of externalities. The positive fan base response to narrow home wins relative to narrow losses suggests that recent luck is rewarded in sporting attendance. We discuss possible mechanisms and document a gradual decline in the attendance response that coincides with the rise of alternative means for viewing games and secondary markets for tickets.

Suggested Citation

  • Munoz Ercio & Chen Jiadi & Thomas Milan, 2022. "Jumping on the bandwagon? Attendance response to recent victories in the NBA," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 18(3), pages 161-170, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:18:y:2022:i:3:p:161-170:n:4
    DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2020-0092
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1515/jqas-2020-0092
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1515/jqas-2020-0092?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    consumer behavior; regression discontinuity design; winner effect;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism
    • Z2 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:18:y:2022:i:3:p:161-170:n:4. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.