Fan Loyalty and Stadium Funding in Professional Baseball

Abstract

This article reexamines the demand for baseball and provides estimates of fan loyalty for U.S.-based professional baseball teams using techniques developed in the stochastic frontier literature. Fans choose to attend games based on price-quality combinations and some intangible fan loyalty. The main focus of this article is to estimate the relative fan loyalty for U.S. professional baseball teams. Fan loyalty is then compared with the outcomes of referenda seeking public funding for new stadiums. Relative fan loyalty is significant in predicting the outcome of public-funding votes.