Novelty Effects of New Facilities on Attendance at Professional Sporting Events

Abstract

We investigate the possibility that new facilities affect attendance - the "novelty effect" - in professional baseball, basketball, and football from 1969-2001 by estimating the parameters of a reduced form attendance model. Our results indicate a strong, persistent novelty effect in baseball and basketball and little or no novelty effect in football. Our estimates of size and duration of the novelty effect imply that, in a new facility, at a minimum, a baseball team would sell an additional 2,561,702 tickets over the first eight seasons, a basketball team 446,936 over the first nine seasons, and a football team 163,436 over the first five seasons. This increase in attendance also suggests a corresponding increase in revenues that could be tapped to help defray the large public subsidies that state and local governments frequently provide to new stadium and arena construction projects.Professional Sports, Attendance, Novelty Effect