Attendance and Ticket Prices
Problem Statement
Demand, the relationship between prices and quantities purchased, is fundamental to all understanding of team revenues. Here’s your chance to explore demand, in part. The data you need are at the Sports Business Data Directory.
Procedure
A. Using MLB ticket price and attendance data, produce an MSExcel spreadsheet for the year 2012 with the following columns: team name, attendance, and ticket price. Scale attendance in 100,000 for charting purposes (Round to Hundredths). Sort the data by attendance in ascending order. Produce a scatter chart with attendance on the x-axis and ticket prices on the y-axis.
B. Using MLB ticket price and attendance data, produce an MSExcel spreadsheet for the San Diego Padres, 2003-2012, with the following columns: year, attendance, ticket price, and real ticket price. You produce the “real ticket price” column using the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis “inflation calculator” to put prices in real terms ($2014). Scale attendance in 100,000 for charting purposes. Sort the data by attendance in ascending order. Produce a scatter chart with attendance on the x-axis and the two ticket prices on the y-axis.
Hand In
Hard copy of all MSExcel files, tables, and charts created, plus a paragraph for each of the following questions:
1. In part A, do your results support or reject the theory of demand? Explain.
2. In part B, do your results support or reject the theory of sports demand using ticket prices unadjusted for inflation? Explain.
3. Do your results in Question 2 change if you use real ticket prices instead? How? Why?
4. For any of the questions, 1-3, what additional data would you need in order to pin down demand more precisely?