No abstract

This article tests for the effects of a change in competitive balance on attendance at Major League Baseball games using game-level attendance data for the 2000-2002 seasons. Employing the difference between the winning percentages of the home and visiting teams as a measure of competitive balance, the authors find (a) the effects of a change in competitive balance on attendance are not symmetric, (b) the effects of a change in competitive balance increase as a team falls further behind the divisional leader, and (c) the effects of a change in competitive balance decline throughout the season if the home team has a better record than the visiting team but increase if the home team has a worse record than the visiting team.

This paper examines the relationship between star power and box office revenues using box office data from nine countries and a continuous measure of star power based on the number of visits to a star's web page on IMDB, the most popular web site for movie-related information. The degree of star power is computed for the top star, top three stars, and the director for the films in our sample. The results indicate that replacing an average star with a top star would increase revenues by an average of $16,618,570, while replacing three average stars with three top stars would increase revenues by an average of $64,410,381.

This article examines the impact of an Academy Award nomination and award for best picture, best actor/actress, and best supporting actor/actress on a film's (i) market share of theaters, (ii) average revenue per screen, and (iii) its probability of survival. The model is estimated using weekly box-office data for a matched sample of nominated and non-nominated films. The results indicate substantial financial benefits for a nomination and award for best picture and best actor/actress. The structure of rewards is consistent with that found in two-stage, single-elimination tournaments.

No abstract