Is March Madness Contagious? Post Season Play and Attendance in NCAA Division I Basketball

33 Pages Posted: 5 Apr 2010

See all articles by Craig A. Depken

Craig A. Depken

University of North Carolina at Charlotte - The Belk College of Business Administration - Department of Economics

Date Written: March 1, 2010

Abstract

Using data describing Division I men’s basketball from 1990-2009, this paper presents empirical evidence that participating in the NCAA tournament or the National Invitational Tournament (NIT) generates internal benefits in the form of increased future attendance to a team’s home games. These impacts are in addition to those generated by team winning percentage and other institutional characteristics. The evidence suggests that having more conference members in the NCAA tournament generates external benefits in the form of future attendance, although there do not appear to be similar impacts associated with the NIT. Finally, there appear to be no greater internal benefits but lower external benefits for Big Six conference members, relative to members of smaller conferences. Thus, if the NCAA tournament selection process is biased against smaller conferences then their members face two levels of costs: they receive lower distributions from the NCAA basketball revenue pool and also enjoy lower attendance than they otherwise would.

Keywords: demand, sports, reputation, spillovers

JEL Classification: L83, D43, D62

Suggested Citation

Depken, Craig A., Is March Madness Contagious? Post Season Play and Attendance in NCAA Division I Basketball (March 1, 2010). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1583435 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1583435

Craig A. Depken (Contact Author)

University of North Carolina at Charlotte - The Belk College of Business Administration - Department of Economics ( email )

Charlotte, NC 28223
United States

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