This article investigates the determinants of attendance at New Zealand matches in the Super 12 rugby union competition from 1999 to 2001. Emphasis is placed on testing the effects of within-season and match uncertainty of outcome on demand. A general-tospecific model selection approach, using Hendry and Krolzig's automated procedures, is applied to a general model that includes potential economic and sporting demand determinants. The results suggest that factors with a statistically significant effect on attendance mainly reflect habit and tradition, such as previous attendance and traditional rivalries, or are beyond the control of administrators, such as rainfall and team placings. Downloaded from ining the effects of prematch uncertainty of outcome. The method adopted is a pooled cross-section variant of recent developments in the general-to-specific (Gets) approach to econometric methodology.The analysis is motivated by a range of issues relating to the economics of professional team sports. First, whereas there is an extensive literature on modeling attendance for different sports, there is, to our knowledge, no published study on rugby union. 1 Jones, Schofield, and Giles (2000, p. 1877, footnote 1) attributed the lack of any such studies to the "amateurish (deliberately?) reporting of attendance and financial data for this heretofore 'amateur' game". With the transformation of rugby union from an amateur to a professional sport since 1995, the lack of detailed statistics is now less of a constraint, although the relatively short runs of data currently available preclude analysis of longer-run issues.Second, professionalization has been accompanied by a greater business orientation and more interest in the financial viability of individual teams. Even with the diversification of revenue sources, particularly the markedly increased importance of broadcasting and sponsorship revenues, actual match attendances are still a significant source of revenue; the determinants of attendance are important to sports administrators and could have implications for the structure of the competition, the make-up and location of teams, and match scheduling.Third, in professional team sports, we observe organizational mechanisms, including restrictions on trade, to ensure competitive balance in competitions. 2 Underlying the emphasis on competitive balance is the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH), which postulates that a positive relationship exists between spectator interest (and, hence, attendance and other revenue sources) and the uncertainty of the outcome of individual matches and of the overall competition. 3 In rugby union, the notion that spectator interest will be higher when competition is even is similarly prevalent, for example, as reflected in the opinion of former All Black Mike Brewer that "obviously to attract live, and television, audiences, and sponsors, the national competition must be competitive, with exciting, close games the norm, not the exception" (Gifford, 1995, p. 182). Given its importance in...