The Effect Of Promotions On Attendance At Major League Baseball Games

Abstract

The determinants of attendance at professional sporting events come from a variety of team- specific, game-specific, and stadium-specific factors. Using data from the 2,431 major league baseball games played during the 2005 season, this study employs a multivariate regression model to determine the effect that the previously mentioned factors have on game attendance. The focus of the study is on the effect that promotions, such as product giveaways, have on attendance. The findings of this study indicate that having a promotion at a game increases attendance by about 1,532 fans. The findings also indicate that both the timing of a promotion and the type of promotion is important. Specifically, promotions held on weekends have a much smaller impact on attendance than promotions held during the week, with promotions held on Friday or Sunday having a particularly small effect. In terms of the type of promotion, this study finds that bobblehead giveaways have by far the largest impact on attendance and that several types of giveaways actually have no effect on attendance.

A General Multiple Distributed Lag Framework for Estimating the Dynamic Effects of Promotions

“…Third, few studies distinguish between different types of promotions and their influence on attendance above and beyond uncontrollable external drivers. Some previous work has examined differences between various promotions, but it is often unclear which promotions are included in such studies, and in some cases, a number of promotions are purposefully excluded from analysis (see Barilla et al 2008, Boyd and Krehbiel 2003, Gifis and Sommers 2006, Lemke et al 2010, Marcum and Greenstein 1985, McDonald and Rascher 2000, Siegfried and Eisenberg 1980. Therefore, every promotion employed by the Pirates from 2010 to 2012 was included in the data set and classified into one of the following four promotional categories (to be described in more detail later): entertainment, giveaway, kids, and price promotions.…”