Interleague Play and Baseball Attendance

Abstract

The effects of interleague play on baseball attendance are estimated via a model of daily attendance from the 1999 season. The results suggest that interleague play results in about a 7% increase in attendance over a comparable intraleague game, yielding an increase in revenue from ticket sales of about one half of 1%. These results are heavily dominated by a relatively small number of attractive visiting teams and, more particularly, by a small number of attractive interleague matchups. Although fans respond positively to some interleague match-ups, many others attract no more and sometimes even fewer fans than traditional intraleague games.