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"...Freakonomics meets ESPN." —Alan
Schwarz, author, The Numbers Game
Taking Measure of the Many Myths
in Modern Sport
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Reviews | What's Inside | Where to Order | Stanford University Press |
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Chapter
Excerpts
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Chapter Two: Much Talking, Little
Walking from Can the Fans Walk?, pp. 15-16 Let’s
begin with a confession. When we began this research we believed the
conventional wisdom. It certainly seemed reasonable to us that fans would
become unhappy with sports when the squabbling over money forces fans to find
other entertainment options. Given this viewpoint, our purpose in looking at
the impact labor disputes have on attendance was not to establish whether
there was an impact. Of course there had to be an impact. We only wished to
know how long it took fans to return to the game once the players came back.
How big a penalty did the fans impose on players and owners when the games
were taken away? The
methodology we followed came from the field of macroeconomics, a field where
Schmidt has published extensively. To understand our approach to the study of
strikes and attendance, we need to discuss, ever so briefly, a particular
event in macroeconomic history. Let’s return to the 1970s, a time when disco
was king and polyester was the fabric of choice. At this time the price of
oil rose dramatically. The sudden increase in the price of oil, coupled with
the sight of millions of Americans dressed in polyester—okay, we made that
part up—led to a decline in the growth rate of the U.S. economy. Eventually
the economy recovered from the impact of higher oil prices. What researchers
in macroeconomics wondered was how long it took the economy to recover from
the external shock of rising oil prices. Initially, we thought a player
strike or ownership lockout had the same impact on fan attendance as higher
oil prices have on economic growth. In a year where a strike happens, average
fan attendance declines. Over time, though, fan attendance eventually
returns. What we wished to measure was
the time it took fans to return. Excerpts (c) 2006 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland
Stanford Jr. University. No further
use, reproduction or distribution of this material is allowed without the
written permission of the publisher. |
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