Competition in shared markets and Major League Baseball broadcast viewership |
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| Authors: | Brian M. Mills Michael Mondello Scott Tainsky |
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| Affiliation: | 1. Department of Tourism, Recreation, &2. Sport Management, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA;3. Department of Marketing, Muma College of Business, University of South Florida, Tampa, FL, USA;4. Department of Recreation, Sport, &5. Tourism, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA |
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| Abstract: | This work evaluates the cross-quality elasticity of related products in the context of local market Nielsen Local People Meter ratings of Major League Baseball (MLB) regular season broadcasts from 2010 through 2013 from six teams in three shared markets. We employ a fixed effects panel regression with multi-way error clustering, finding that fans exhibit nuanced behaviour related to the absolute quality and relative quality of the two local teams. Our estimates imply quality-related competition for viewership between teams in the face of large disparities in quality. However, when both teams are of high quality, viewership increased beyond what own-team success would predict alone for the competing team. The competitive effects are largely dominated by the spillover effects. These findings point to complementary effects of team success beyond own-team interest, and bring about an important nuance in the literature on market definition, competition and substitution in sport. |
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| Keywords: | Market definition spillover effects fan substitution broadcast ratings baseball |
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