America's Past Time: An Exploration of the Declining Attendance and Viewership of Major League Baseball
Open Access
Author:
Narayan, Nihaar
Area of Honors:
Economics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
James R. Tybout, Thesis Honors Advisor Peter William Newberry, Thesis Supervisor
Keywords:
MLB Baseball Economics Sabermetrics
Abstract:
This paper explores the trend of declining attendance and viewership of Major League Baseball, as well as the concern held by league officials and the media that the sport is losing the interest of the American audience. It investigates the effect that different in-game factors, which have been mentioned as possible contributors to the game’s decline, have had on the league’s attendance and viewership, roughly over the past decade. Specifically, this investigation uses multiple panel data regression analysis techniques, including random effects estimators and fixed effects estimators to glean the impact of increasing game time, slowing pace of play, and increasing Three True Outcome rate on attendance and viewership. Ultimately, this paper concludes that game time and pace of play are insignificant to attendance and viewership, while Three True Outcome rate negatively affects attendance. Within Three True Outcome rate, it is found that strikeout rate specifically negatively affects both attendance and TV ratings.
