NBA Primary Market Ticket Consumers: Ex Ante Expectations and Consumer Market Origination

Abstract

We add to the recent ticket market literature by using a unique, disaggregated, and proprietary data set of primary market ticket sales transactions from a National Basketball Association team that includes previously unavailable information on date of purchase, customer location, and other consumer demographics. We find that local and out-of-market fans differ in their total purchase amounts, with out-of-market fans spending more than local consumers, on average, and differential spending effects based on the home team win probability. In particular, this differential behavior has important implications for Rottenberg’s uncertainty of outcome hypothesis. We find evidence that interest in visiting team quality dominates interest in perceived contest uncertainty, fitting the reference-dependent preference model in the context of low local team quality. Further, these findings also have important implications related to market segmentation and dynamic ticket pricing in professional sport.

Outcome Uncertainty, Fan Travel, and Aggregate Attendance

“…Individual fan utility can be maximized at expected home win probabilities above 50% because attendance at games depends on choices made by both local and out-of-town fans. Again, this is consistent with evidence in Mills, Salaga, and Tainsky (2016).…”

“…Mills, Salaga, and Tainsky () developed evidence supporting this assumption. An analysis of ticket purchase decisions by out‐of‐town fans revealed that spending by out‐of‐town attendees at NBA games increased with the strength of the visiting team, other factors constant.…”

If you build it, will they log on? Wi–Fi usage and behavior while attending National Basketball Association games

“…There did happen to be more users moving through the Wi-Fi funnel at the Amway and Barclays Center compared to the Target Center, possibly associated with the disinterest spectators have for losers and seeking alternative means of stimulation (cf. Mills et al, 2016). Further, the finding that a typical NBA game has approximately 1,000,000 sessions on the venue Wi-Fi network is evidence of its use and role in facilitating the development and diffusion of content from fans in the venue, which has impact for the organization.…”

“…These attributes are important to consider as they can impact spectator (dis)interest and the potential use of the venue's Wi-Fi hotspot (cf. Mills et al, 2016) (see Table 2).…”

“…As consumer interest in attending sport events wanes when teams are less likely to participate in postseason play (Mills et al, 2016), assessing use of the venue's technology service can also depict whether Wi-Fi is part of the value proposition offered to consumers to attract them in those non-marquee circumstances. Moreover, given that Wi-Fi has become an important driver of direct and indirect revenue for businesses in the entertainment and hospitality sectors (Kaiser et al, 2017), a study of this nature can also help inform and reshape stakeholder priorities and service offerings at sport events.…”