Seppo Suominen Essays on cultural economics
Demand for ice hockey, the factors explaining attendance of ice hockey games in Finland
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3Demand for ice hockey, the factors explaining attendance of ice hockey games in Finland3.1IntroductionThis paper uses regular season 2007 – 2008 Finnish ice hockey attendance figures to examine the explaining determinants. Simple economic theory suggests that the demand for attendance should depend on the ticket price of the game and travel costs, the incomes of spectators, the prices of substitute goods, and market size (Simmons 2006). Usually market size is measured by local population. There is a wide range of literature on attendance of sports events but not any with Finnish ice hockey data. Therefore the need for this study is great. Since Finland is sparsely populated, the market size measured by the population of the home towns of the teams is rather small and the distances between teams‟ home towns are not small. Does this have an impact on attendance figures? The regular series starts in the autumn when the temperature is still rather warm compared to the winter time and hence large variation in the climate conditions might have an impact on attendance figures. Does this have an impact? Besides that the literature on sport events‟ attendance has used several other explanatory variables, like the unemployment rate or the winning percentage. What is the role of these variables and what is the price elasticity? The purpose of this study is to use conventional explanatory variables to explain ice hockey attendance figures and get more information on the behaviour of the audience. A recent sport attendance survey14 – both active consumption (participation in sport competitions or being a member in a sport or gymnastic club) and passive consumption (attendance) reveals that the most popular sports by attendance were ice hockey (25.5%), football (16.9%), athletics (10.6%), skiing (6.5%) and Finnish- rules baseball (5%). In this survey 44 % responded that they had not attended any sports event between February 2005 and January 2006. A key contribution of this paper is to show that both the market size (town population) of the home and the visiting teams have an impact on attendance and the price elasticity is fairly low. Most studies indeed reveal that sporting events are priced in the inelastic range (Krautmann & Berri 2007). Ice hockey is less experience goods than movie attendance as studied in chapter 2 since the ice hockey is a series of games. Consumers can get the relevant information of home team’s performance by going to a game. The ice hockey game a search good relative to movie attendance since most consumers go to see a particular movie only one. Previous success measured as points per game from the beginning of the season is better to explain attendance than points per game from three last games (the form guide). The obvious reason is that all scores matter for being eligible to play-off games. An important finding is that the temperature also matters and consumers’ incomes have a negative impact on attendance. The results reveal that the consumer conficende index (CCI) measuring monthly expectations for indivicual incomes and consumption for men differs from the CCI for women. The parameter estimate for the CCI for men explaining ice hockey attendance is roughly twice as large as it is for women. There are a few studies that have compared the attendance of sport activities between men’s and women’s games or between genders. Most studies show that there are more male spectators than female (see Vuolle, Telama & Laakso 1986, Gantz & Wenner 1991, Zhang, Pease, Hui & Michaud 1995, White & Wilson 1999 or Thrane 2001). Women seem to favour women’s games and men favour men’s games. (Kahle, Duncan, Dalakas & Aiken 2001). The sociology of sport consumption has revealed that the motives for attending women’s games and men’s games differ. Typically, the aesthetics of the game or competition is more important for women’s team spectators and for female spectators (Ridinger & Funk 2006), while e.g. tracking statistics is more important for men (Fink, Trail & Anderson 2002). The relationship between gender and active sport consumption, i.e. participation in sport competitions or being a member in a sport or gymnastic club, reveals only minor differences in Finland. Both genders are as active, but women seem to favour more clubs of commercial purposes (e.g. gym with aerobics), while men are more often members in sports associations that play games (Kansallinen liikuntatutkimus 2005-2006). Gymnastics at home and within a gymnastic association have been typically female, while fishing and hunting have been male sport activities (Marin 1988). ONKO OIKEA PAIKKA?The sensitivity of attendance to ice hockey game and to its pricing also depends on the motivation. The sociology of sport consumption has revealed that there are substantial motive differences between genders. A well-known classification is Sport Fan Motivation Scale (SFMS) by Wann (1995). There are eight motives: eustress (i.e. the need for positive stress), self-esteem (i.e. the desire to maintain a positive self-concept through team success), escape (i.e. sport as diversion from bored everyday life), entertainment, economic (i.e. gamble on the events), aesthetic (i.e. sport as an art), group affiliation (i.e. belongingness need), and family (i.e. opportunities to spend time with family). Wann conducted a quantitative examination with a 23-item Likert scale questionnaire. Using confirmatory factor analysis the above mentioned eight internally consistent, reliable and criterion valid motives were found. The original sample consisted of primarily of university college students. Several studies, however, confirmed the results (e.g. Wann, Schrader & Wilson 1999, Wann, Royalty & Rochelle 2002, Wann, Robinson, Dick & Gillentine 2003, Ridinger & Funk 2006, Wann, Grieve, Zapalac & Pease 2008 or Koo & Hardin 2008). Eustress, self-esteem and group affiliation motives were more associated with team and aggressive sport type (e.g. football, ice hockey) rather than individual and nonaggressive sport type. On the other hand, aesthetic motive was associated with individual and nonaggressive sport type (e.g. figure skating, tennis). Wann, Schrader & Wilson (1999) also classify sport spectators as intrinsically or extrinsically oriented. Fans that enjoy sport because of its aesthetics and artistic movement (intrinsic) may not bother of their favorite team’s or individual’s poor performance since the aesthetic performance of the event is present regardless of the outcome. On the other hand extrinsic fans (self-esteem, economic motives) could find it unpleasant to watch their favorite team’s games unless the team is victorious. Self-respect and self-fulfillment are more associated with women’s team spectators (Kahle, Duncan, Dalakas & Aiken 2001) while self-indulgence is more men’s team spectators’ attribute. The opportunity to spend time with family or sense of belonging or socialization is attributes associated with women’s sport spectators (Kahle, Duncan, Dalakas & Aiken 2001 or Ridinger & Funk 2006). Females seem to be more sport fans for social reasons (Dietz-Uhler, Harrick, End & Jacquemotte 2000), while males are more likely to be fans because they play sports and want to acquire sport information (e.g. read sport pages in newspapers). The relationship between gender and passive sport consumption, i.e. attendance at games, has been less studied. If there are gender differences across games and if women spectators have different motives to attend sport activities, the factors explaining attendance should be different. Since men use more time in tracking statistics and reading about sports in daily newspapers (Dietz-Uhler, Harrick, End & Jacquemotte 2000), a team’s winning percentage or other previous performance measure of the team should be less important to explain women’s teams’ attendance figure. There are also differences between the importance of ticket pricing, friend influence and family involvement in women’s and men’s (basketball in the USA) games (Fink, Trail & Anderson 2002); hence the price elasticity of demand should differ. Women’s games should be more ticket price sensitive. Since in this study the men’s games are examined, there price sensitivity should be rather low. The third essay reveals that the typical sport spectator has a rather low educational level and the gender is more often male, therefore is it reasonable to expect that the ice hockey attendance has a negative income elasticity. The low income spectator group is also more often univore (Chan and Goldthorpe 2005). A person is classified as univore if he/she is active in one sector of leisure activities or culture but not active in other fields of the culture. Omnivores have a higher probability of participating in everything from unpopular (e.g. opera, classical music) to popular (e.g. cinema, sport). Since the gender is important in classifying into univore and omnivore (Bihagen and Katz-Gerro 2000), the spectators of ice hockey is expected to consist mainly of low income men. There are 14 teams playing at the men’s highest level in the Finnish ice hockey league. The regular season 2007 – 2008 was a four-fold series, i.e. 52 games per team, and teams located in Helsinki (HIFK and Jokerit) played extra four mutual games; two at home stadium and two at visitor’s stadium. In addition to that, the remaining 12 teams played extra four games in the subdivisions of three teams. The subdivisions were 1) Blues (home city: Espoo), Pelicans (Lahti), SaiPa (Lappeenranta), 2) HPK (Hämeenlinna), Ilves (Tampere), Tappara (Tampere), 3) JYP (Jyväskylä), KalPa (Kuopio), Kärpät (Oulu) and 4) Lukko (Rauma), TPS (Turku), Ässät (Pori)15. Altogether each team played 28 home games and 28 games as visitor (Jääkiekkokirja 2008 - 2009, 55). The first regular season games were played in September 2007 and the last in March 2008. After that some teams continued their games in play-offs and the champion (Kärpät) was known in mid- April. Jokerit from Helsinki got the biggest average attendance (8591 per game), while the lowest figure was for HPK (3281 per game). Jokerit has the biggest stadium (Hartwall Areena) in terms of capacity. The number of seats was 13506, while in Hämeenlinna (HPK) the number of seats was only 3214 but with 1786 standing places – so altogether 5000 places. Table 1 summarizes some statistics for the average attendance of each team during the regular season 2007 – 2008. Naturally bigger cities like Helsinki, Espoo, Tampere or Turku have a bigger attendance potential, but this does not explain enough the variation in attendance. It is also true based on the coefficient of variation that attendance variation is much higher for Jokerit and KalPa than for Kärpät, JYP, HPK or Pelicans. Altogether, in regular season the number of games was 14 x 28 = 392 and the total attendance was 1964626, i.e. 5012 per game. Other cultural events, like theater, gathered a bigger admission in 2007: about 2.7 million but with a bigger number of total presentations (about 13000) which equals 207 per presentation. The Finnish national opera sold 162555 tickets to 198 presentations (about 820 per presentation). In the highest football league, Veikkausliiga games, the admission number was 541612 with 182 games (2976 per game). Hence, in terms of cultural events attendance in live performances, ice hockey was the most important. However, going to the movies was even more important since the total admission number was about 6.5 million in Finland (population 5.3 M) but there were not live performances (Statistical Year Book 2008 Finland and www.veikkausliiga.fi). Table 3 : Regular season 2007 – 2008 average attendance and capacity statistics
According to statistical surveys made by national sports associations (SLU, Suomen Liikunta ja Urheilu, published in Statistical Year Book 2008, Finland), exercising ice hockey is not as usual as football, hence one might assume that attendance in football games should be higher than ice hockey. However, the aim of this study is not to compare different sports but to explain ice hockey games attendance. Data are mainly from official sources (Statistics Finland, Population Register Centre, Finnish Meteorogial Institute, Finnish Ice Hockey Association). Newspapers and sport news on television reveal this information and since most teams have typically three games per week, this team performance information is revealed three times a week during the regular ice hockey season. Download 2.66 Mb. Share with your friends:
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