IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/25831.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The use of Public Funds for Private Benefit: An Examination of the Relationship between Public Stadium Funding and Ticket Prices in the National Football League

Author

Listed:
  • Matt, Brown
  • Daniel, Rascher
  • Wesley, Ward

Abstract

During the past decade there has been a proliferation of sports stadia being built in America’s municipal districts. While it used to be common for the public to fully fund stadium construction projects, over the past twenty years factors such as political motives, tax reform and increased public awareness of tax equity have forced sports teams to share increasing amounts of the financial burden (Crompton, Howard, & Var, 2003). As public funding for stadia construction has decreased, franchises have continued to strive for maximized profits. Concurrently, the cost of attending events in sports stadia has increased for consumers in terms of higher ticket prices even though changes in fixed costs should not affect pricing (Leeds & von Allmen, 2004). The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between the use of public funds to build stadia and the profit maximizing goals of National Football League (NFL) franchises. A hypothesis was formulated that stated the impact of the public share of the construction cost would have no effect on relative ticket prices for those that consume the product. The cross-sectional data for a ticket price model, which consisted of seasonal data from every NFL team to play from 1991 through 2003, was investigated. The results showed an increase in public funding by 10% lowers ticket prices by 42 cents. As shown, the bulk of the variation in ticket prices was due to a general increase over time and MSA per capita income.

Suggested Citation

  • Matt, Brown & Daniel, Rascher & Wesley, Ward, 2006. "The use of Public Funds for Private Benefit: An Examination of the Relationship between Public Stadium Funding and Ticket Prices in the National Football League," MPRA Paper 25831, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:25831
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/25831/1/MPRA_paper_25831.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chad D. McEvoy & Mark S. Nagel & Timothy D. DeSchriver & Matthew T. Brown, 2005. "Facility Age and Attendance in Major League Baseball," Sport Management Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 19-41, January.
    2. McDonald, Mark & Rascher, Daniel, 2000. "Does Bat Day Make Cents? The Effect of Promotions on the Demand for Major League Baseball," MPRA Paper 25739, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Rodney Fort, 2004. "Inelastic sports pricing," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 87-94.
    4. McEvoy, Chad D. & Nagel, Mark S. & DeSchriver, Timothy D. & Brown, Matthew T., 2005. "Facility Age and Attendance in Major League Baseball," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 8(1), pages 19-41, May.
    5. Rodney Fort, 2004. "Subsidies as incentive mechanisms in sports," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(2), pages 95-102.
    6. Brown, Matthew & Nagel, Mark & McEvoy, Chad & Rascher, Daniel, 2004. "Revenue and Wealth Maximization in the National Football League: The Impact of Stadia," MPRA Paper 25741, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vörös, Tünde, 2017. "Költség-haszon elemzési keretrendszer sportberuházások társadalmi-gazdasági értékeléséhez [An economic framework for cost-benefit analysis of sports facilities]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(4), pages 394-420.
    2. Geoffrey Propheter, 2017. "Subsidies and Stadia’ Opulence," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 3-18, January.
    3. Pelnar, Gregory, 2009. "Competition and Cooperation between Professional Sports Franchises: The Impact on Ticket Prices," MPRA Paper 17787, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Daniel A. Rascher & Matthew T. Brown & Mark S. Nagel & Chad D. McEvoy, 2012. "Financial Risk Management," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(4), pages 431-450, August.
    2. Elise M. Beckman & Wenqiang Cai & Rebecca M. Esrock & Robert J. Lemke, 2012. "Explaining Game-to-Game Ticket Sales for Major League Baseball Games Over Time," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(5), pages 536-553, October.
    3. Pascal Courty & Luke Davey, 2020. "The Impact of Variable Pricing, Dynamic Pricing, and Sponsored Secondary Markets in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(2), pages 115-138, February.
    4. Dominik Schreyer, 2019. "Football spectator no-show behaviour in the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(45), pages 4882-4901, September.
    5. Alan L. Morse & Stephen L. Shapiro & Chad D. McEvoy & Daniel A. Rascher, 2008. "The Effects of Roster Turnover on Demand in the National Basketball Association," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 3(1), pages 8-18, February.
    6. Geoffrey Propheter, 2017. "Subsidies and Stadia’ Opulence," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 18(1), pages 3-18, January.
    7. Stefan Szymanski, 2023. "Anticipating the honeymoon: Event study estimation of new stadium effects in Major League Baseball using the imputation method," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 61(4), pages 1077-1102, October.
    8. Brian P Soebbing & Daniel S Mason & Brad R Humphreys, 2016. "Novelty effects and sports facilities in smaller cities: Evidence from Canadian hockey arenas," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 53(8), pages 1674-1690, June.
    9. Agha, Nola & Rascher, Daniel, 2013. "When can economic impact be positive? Nine conditions that explain why smaller sports can have bigger impacts," MPRA Paper 48016, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Daniel, Rascher & Chad, McEvoy & Mark, Nagel & Matt, Brown, 2007. "Variable Ticket Pricing in Major League Baseball," MPRA Paper 25803, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Sang Hun Sung & Doo-Seung Hong & Soo Young Sul, 2020. "How We Can Enhance Spectator Attendance for the Sustainable Development of Sport in the Era of Uncertainty: A Re-Examination of Competitive Balance," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-15, August.
    12. Russell Ormiston, 2014. "Attendance Effects of Star Pitchers in Major League Baseball," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 15(4), pages 338-364, August.
    13. Eelco Kappe & Ashley Stadler Blank & Wayne S. DeSarbo, 2014. "A General Multiple Distributed Lag Framework for Estimating the Dynamic Effects of Promotions," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 60(6), pages 1489-1510, June.
    14. Stefan Szymanski, 2021. "On the Incidence of an Ad Valorem Tax: The Adoption of VAT in the UK and Cost Pass Through by English Football Clubs," De Economist, Springer, vol. 169(1), pages 37-61, February.
    15. Scott Tainsky & Chad D. McEvoy, 2012. "Television Broadcast Demand in Markets Without Local Teams," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 13(3), pages 250-265, June.
    16. Scott Tainsky & Jie Xu & Brian M. Mills & Steven Salaga, 2016. "How Success and Uncertainty Compel Interest in Related Goods: Playoff Probability and Out-of-Market Television Viewership in the National Football League," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 48(1), pages 29-43, February.
    17. Humphreys, Brad R. & Soebbing, Brian P., 2012. "A test of monopoly price dispersion under demand uncertainty," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 114(3), pages 304-307.
    18. Robert J. Lemke & Matthew Leonard & Kelebogile Tlhokwane, 2010. "Estimating Attendance at Major League Baseball Games for the 2007 Season," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(3), pages 316-348, June.
    19. Layson, Stephen, 2010. "Quasi‐linear Utility and Two‐Market Monopoly," UNCG Economics Working Papers 10-6, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Department of Economics.
    20. Kimberly S. Schimmel, 2011. "From ‘Violence-complacent’ to ‘Terrorist-ready’," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(15), pages 3277-3291, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    sunk costs; stadium; financing; public finance; football; ticket prices; fixed costs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

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

    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:pra:mprapa:25831. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.