The effects of expansion and relocation on neighbouring teams in Korean professional baseball league

C-Tier
Journal: Applied Economics
Year: 2025
Volume: 57
Issue: 59
Pages: 10788-10801

Authors (2)

Hayley Jang (not in RePEc) Young Hoon Lee (Sogang University)

Score contribution per author:

0.503 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 0.5x C-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Despite the substantial and continually expanding body of empirical literature examining factors influencing attendance demand (Schreyer and Ansari 2022), there is a lack of studies analysing the comprehensive effects of changes in league structure, especially for Asian sports leagues. This study examines how changes in sports league structure, specifically alterations in the number of teams and host cities, affect attendance demand for both new teams and existing teams in Korea baseball league. Our findings reveal several points. Firstly, our analysis affirms the existence of a novelty effect in the inaugural year for newly expanded teams. Secondly, relocated teams face a significant decrease in attendance, persisting over an extended period. Thirdly, the emergence of a new team from either result of expansion or relocation, generally does not affect the attendance of neighbouring teams. Nevertheless, we find evidence of fan substitution when a new team is introduced in a region that previously had only one baseball teams, even in densely populated areas. Conversely, when a region already offers a sufficient number of alternative baseball teams, the introduction of a new team does not significantly impact fan demand. This finding is consistent with current centralized spatial distribution of Korea Baseball Organization franchise.

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:taf:applec:v:57:y:2025:i:59:p:10788-10801
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25