Next Year in Baltimore: NAASE at Western Meetings in Portland

Had a good morning in Portland. I presented my paper and it went reasonably well. My discussant had some good comments, of course I wish the paper had fewer issues it's always good to have someone point them out. Plus I had lunch with the discussant afterword so all is well.


I haven't seen that many papers yet at the North American Association of Sports Economics (NAASE). Two good ones were by economists from Baltimore. The first John Burger & Stephen Walters (Loyola just down the road from Towson) and the second paper Dennis Coates (UM Baltimore County) co-authored with Brad Humphreys (University of Alberta, not from Baltimore)

In the first paper we learned that World Series rating fall as income goes up. The presenter Steve Walter said MLB has managed to make the World Series an inferior good. I agree if we are talking about 2006 as a Tigers fan. Also the paper finds that long games decreasing ratings. So get the hitters back in the box and let's play ball!

The second paper looked at NFL attendance. Using betting lines Coates and Humphreys find that having each team with an equal chance of winning every game would have decreased total attendance 9% over what it was over the last 25 years. Their work concludes if the home team has a better chance of winning attendance goes up. Just a quick thought, this could imply that improving home field advantage could improve attendance. Does this mean the NFL will mandate piped in vuvuzela noise when ever the visiting team has the ball. If the World Cup is any indication scoring is impossible when vuvuzela's get going!