Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Putting a price on "announced attendance" 

This is dated, but interesting. Back in the 2005-06 season, the San Diego Gulls, a minor league hockey team (ECHL), reported an average attendance of 5,841 for its regular season games. The Gulls made the post-season, and had two home playoff games. The Gulls announced attendance for these two games was 2,003 and 2,690, less than half the regular season average. What gives? Mark Ziegler provides this answer:
During the regular season, teams are allowed to announce tickets distributed, often ballooning attendance figures 40 or 50 percent above the turnstile counts. In the playoffs, the league adds a surcharge to each ticket – this year it was $1.50 – to cover postseason expenses as well as a player bonus pool. You are allowed 50 comp tickets. Anything else is up to an individual team, with the proviso that it pays $1.50 per ticket. So if a team announces 5,000 in the playoffs when 2,000 are in the house, does it pay the surcharge on 5,000 tickets? “You bet,” ECHL Commissioner Brian McKenna says. “What is announced in the playoffs is very close to the actual number in the building.”
Apparently, "tickets distributed" is a euphemism for dropping off blocks of 50 or 100 tickets to local shops, civic groups, and the like. This pumps up the announced attendance and might make the team look more popular than it really is. When you put a price on it (however unintentionally), announced attendance plummets.

Ziegler also lists league policies for announcing attendance. There's a good bit of variation across the sports.

Thanks to student Wil Kirwan for the link!

Labels: ,


permalink posted by Skip Sauer @ 10:36 AM

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

A Report From the Cutting Edge 

This just in: remember that image of baseball front office types as slow-witted dinosaurs who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into the twentieth century by Michael Lewis? Forget about that - MLB has jumped right onto this newfangled analysis bandwagon. According to a recent Bloomberg article, the Cleveland Indians have developed a brand-spanking new cutting edge ticket pricing system. Compared to other MLB clubs, who may be pricing tickets after consulting the Oracle at Delphi and examining pigeon entrails for all we know, the Tribe hired a consultant to statistically analyze their past three years of attendance data. Based on this cutting edge analysis, the Tribe "learned that fireworks after a game draw an additional 4,000 fans; every one-degree temperature drop below 70 Fahrenheit costs them 300; and when the New York Yankees come to town, attendance jumps 11,000." If this article is to be believed, the Indians are the only team in MLB doing this sort of analysis of attendance.

Among the other fascinating details uncovered by this cutting edge statistical analysis include that "...when children are on summer break, attendance increases 1,200; if rain is in the forecast, it falls 2,200; a bobblehead-doll giveaway brings in 4,700 people..." It's too bad that nobody in the Indian's front office thought to read "Does Bat Day Make Cents?: The Effect of Promotions on the Demand for Baseball" by Mark McDonald and Dan Rascher (which was published in the Journal of Sport Management almost ten years ago), because they could have saved the consulting fee. Most of that information is in Mark and Dan's paper.

Hat tip to Bryan Goodall.

Labels: , ,


permalink posted by Brad Humphreys @ 6:25 PM

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Two on the economy & attendance demand 

"Economic downturn isn't slowing luxury box sales," at the NY Times. The focus is on the New York market and sales at the new stadiums. The article stresses the size of the market in sustaining demand. My hunch is that demand is indeed less than anticipated, but that much of the adjustment will come through negotiations on price.

"Wall Street woe could transform team-fan divide," at Bloomberg, with anecdotes about company and team responses to the economic situation. One of note: GM will take a pass on Super Bowl ads next February.

Labels: ,


permalink posted by Skip Sauer @ 8:26 AM

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Recession and ticket demand 

Are baseball fans spooked by the recession talk? The early literature on ticket demand suggested that attendance was not affected much by business cycle swings. Let's take a look at this year's spring training attendance:


Cactus League
Despite an economy as shaky as a rookie pitcher's first big-league outing, Cactus League baseball fans are showing up in Arizona on a record pace.

At the season's midpoint, about 550,000 fans have attended 92 games, up nearly 2 percent from the same time last year, said J.P. de la Montaigne, president of the Cactus League Association.
2007 set an attendance record, so a 2% increase suggests baseball demand is holding up well.

The high price of gasoline would seem to make vacation travel to Florida vulnerable, but the Grapefruit League numbers are not off very much:

Grapefruit League:
Through 173 games, following the slate of 10 games on Sunday, March 16, the attendance total stands at 1,036,797.
That's 6,000 fans per game, down 200 from last year's record-breaking total. A 3% decline, which might be due to a change in relative prices (gas) and not an aggregate economy-wide swoon.

As for the regular season, it is clearly too early to tell. But the swoon on Wall Street doesn't seem to be affecting Yankee prices or demand very much. From Wallace Matthews:
As of yesterday, 42 of the 50 luxury suites in the new Yankee Stadium have been sold, at up to $800,000 each. Sixty percent of the park, or more than 30,000 seats, are classified as "premium" seats, priced between $250 and $1,000 each, and right now you couldn't buy one if you knew the mayor.
The same goes for tickets costing $2,500 at the new ballpark, for games that won't be played until 2009. "[T]he choicest seats in their new ballpark, right behind home plate, plus waiter services, free parking, free food and access to three private clubs." All 1,800 are sold. Russell Goldman has more on the transformation of Yankee tickets into luxury goods.

The bottom line: if you are looking for signs of recession, perhaps you should look somewhere other than the ballpark.

Labels: , ,


permalink posted by Skip Sauer @ 9:15 AM

Friday, March 14, 2008

Sports and the Economy 

Some say we're in recession, some say we're not (yet anyway). Meanwhile, the Cactus League is doing fine, thank you.
This season, Cactus League visitors are on track to eclipse the more than 1.27 million record fans in 2005, said Robert Brinton, Cactus League Association vice president.

He said that sports-related tourism seems more resistant to the ebbs of flows of the economy than other travel.

An increase in more locals attending games could also account for the strong turnout through the first half of the Cactus League.

The Chicago Cubs in Mesa, the perennial Cactus League leader at the box office, could set a record for average attendance, Brinton said.

The Cubs have drawn almost 11,000 fans per game the past two seasons.
Early evidence (i.e. dated papers that could be re-examined) indicates that attendance at sporting events is resilient to economic downturns. Recession or not, this story is consistent with that conclusion.

Labels: ,


permalink posted by Skip Sauer @ 8:05 AM

Friday, August 24, 2007

Cardinal Baseball is a Subsitute for Mizzou Football in St. Louis 

Mizzou's game against the Fighting Illini that will be played in St. Louis this year is not the blockbuster ticket that some hoped for:

Matching the attendance numbers the Missouri-Illinois football game achieved in the 2002 and 2003 seasons is going to be difficult for the St. Louis Sports Commission.

Less than 50,000 tickets have been sold for the Sept. 1 game at the 66,000-seat Edward Jones Dome, which is off the pace of the 63,576 tickets that were sold in 2003 and the 61,876 in 2002.

"The upper 50 thousands would be a nice place to be this year," said Marc Schreiber, the commission's vice president of marketing and development. "The key for us is that this is sort of a long-term thing for us. We're not just looking at this year and what we do to say whether it's successful or not."

Still, the interest in the season opener is low considering that both schools are expected to be improved, and possibly bowl-caliber. That's in contrast to the 2002 season when neither team went to a bowl and the 2003 season when Mizzou went to the Independence Bowl. In 2003, despite both teams coming off 5-7 seasons and Illinois ultimately going 1-11, the series hit a high in attendance as far as games being played in St. Louis are concerned.

Jeff Gordon thinks fans are taking a wait and see approach to this game. I think there's something else going on. The game starts at 2:30 on Sept 1 and the Cards - a substitute product - play the Reds at 6:15 in St. Louis. With the Cards in the race for the divisional title and Rick Ankiel being the feel good story of the year that, at least for St. Louis, really needs one, that game will command much interest.

In 2002, the MU - IU game was played on Aug 31st. That evening the Cards played at the Cubs (the Cards swept them that weekend, those cads). Over 61,000 went to that game. In 2003 the Tigers played the Illini on August 30th. Over 63,000 fans went to that game. That night, the Cards played in Cincy.

So my guess is that Mizzou fans can blame the Cardinals for producing an intrguing substitute good that evening just down the road from the dome.

Labels: , , , , ,


permalink posted by Phil Miller @ 1:21 AM