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The editorial in the Journal of Sport Management introduces a collection of articles focusing on gendered experiences in sport. The issue highlights the importance of understanding women's involvement in sport management and the challenges they face. The research presented in the articles covers a wide range of topics related to gender and women's experiences in sports, emphasizing the need for continued exploration and intersectional approaches to examining gendered experiences. The authors hope that this issue will spark further dialogue and momentum for women's sport globally. [Extracted from the article]

The impact of sporting events on local economies has been a focus of academic research for many years. Sporting events create externalities within the local economies in the form of spillover effects. This study investigates the role of Southeastern Conference collegiate football games on local hotel demand from 2003 to 2017. Fixed effects models are used to expand upon previous research by incorporating six data sources to analyze the impact of team, game, hotel, and market characteristics on hotel performance. Results indicate that the demand for hotels varies greatly according to team and opponent quality. A number of sport marketing, sport economics, hospitality, and tourism management implications are discussed for universities and industry in their communities regarding scheduling and the potential for revenue growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors demonstrate that betting market outcomes are a statistically significant and economically relevant driver of local market television viewership in the National Basketball Association. Ratings are higher when the local market team covers the point spread and when point spread outcome uncertainty is increased. They further illustrate that point spread market outcomes have a larger relative impact on viewership in less-popular games and when the local market team is expected to perform poorly. This suggests wagering market access serves as insurance to the league and its franchises against reduced viewership in games that are less appealing to consumers. The results assess the degree to which wagering interest has driven past revenues as well as how the legalization of sports wagering may influence future revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Investigation of minor league demand is scant relative to major leagues, particularly at the game level. This presents not only a contextual gap in the research, but also a conceptual one related to demand externalities. Minor League Baseball differs from major professional leagues in that gate revenue sharing is not a fixture in league policy, and talent investment decisions are made by the parent club. Nonetheless, it may be the case that a host club benefits from characteristics of its opponent. Econometric examination of over 31,000 minor league games across multiple leagues and seasons finds proximity to an opponent's major league parent team increases attendance. Although the authors find evidence of increased demand for a top prospect from the home club, the presence of visiting top prospects is not associated with changes in attendance, prompting the question as to whether effective marketing efforts in this regard would increase home club revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sport rivalries have been shown to increase the emotional intensity of fans, which not only can lead to higher levels of interest and involvement but can also escalate negative fan behaviors based on in-group/out-group distinctions. This study represents the first use of an experimental economics approach in sport management to understand the behaviors of rival sports fans. Specifically, the classic behavioral economics experiment, the ultimatum game, was used to test the willingness of rival fans to make their out-group counterparts worse off. Using a $10 stake, proposers offered approximately 8.7% less to rival fans than to in-group fans, while the probability that a responder accepted an offer--holding constant offer size--was approximately 7% lower when the proposer was a rival. Team identification had no effect on offers or acceptances. Implications for understanding rivalry in sport are discussed, and advantages of behavioral economics for sport management research are noted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This work evaluates the cross-quality elasticity of related products in the context of Nielsen Local People Meter ratings of all regular season broadcasts from 2010 through 2013 from six National Football League teams in three shared markets. Using a fixed effects panel regression, we do not uncover evidence that viewers are swayed by the success of a rival market team in their aggregate viewership patterns, contrary to what has been found in Major League Baseball. In addition, when within-market rivals play one another, we find that viewership levels increase but in a way that indicates considerable overlap of viewership and possible substitution choices made by consumers. We expand upon the implications of this work for demand estimation in sports economics research as well as the importance of our findings to sport management-related policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We add to the recent ticket market literature by using a unique, disaggregated, and proprietary data set of primary market ticket sales transactions from a National Basketball Association team that includes previously unavailable information on date of purchase, customer location, and other consumer demographics. We find that local and out-of-market fans differ in their total purchase amounts, with out-of-market fans spending more than local consumers, on average, and differential spending effects based on the home team win probability. In particular, this differential behavior has important implications for Rottenberg's uncertainty of outcome hypothesis. We find evidence that interest in visiting team quality dominates interest in perceived contest uncertainty, fitting the reference-dependent preference model in the context of low local team quality. Further, these findings also have important implications related to market segmentation and dynamic ticket pricing in professional sport. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the factors impacting sport demand separately by gender. Most determinants exerted statistically significant influence on both male and female viewers, notably income, population, team tenure, home telecasts, prime time, team quality, and games back in the division. Among the significant factors, differences between males and females only existed with respect to population, absolute team quality, and relative team quality, with female viewers more responsive to these factors than male viewers. No evidence of differences between male and female viewers was found for anticipated game uncertainty. Counter to the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis, viewership was associated with larger gaps in the winning percentages of the competing teams, demonstrating a preference for local team supremacy, a factor that was greater among female fans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper estimates the relationship between outcome uncertainty and television viewership in NCAA Division I men's college basketball. The results demonstrate mixed support for the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis. Viewers prefer contests anticipated to be more certain, but also respond favorably to contests which have higher levels of within-game outcome uncertainty. The results also indicate that these preferences are not static across the season calendar. During postseason play, the preference for anticipated contest certainty is reduced, while the preference for within-game uncertainty is heightened. Given that consumers respond favorably to lower levels of anticipated contest uncertainty, from a policy perspective, there is little evidence that the current NCAA structure-which allows competition between programs with sizeable differences in both revenue and team quality-negatively impacts television viewership or associated revenues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Excessive competitive imbalance holds the potential to render teams and, by extension, leagues inviable. The China Table Tennis Super League has languished in its attempt to catch on as a popular spectator sport in spite of the sport’s popularity as recreational activity. One of the primary reasons for the participation–spectatorship gap cited by officials is competitive imbalance. This research estimates a number of within-season balance measures, including the standard deviation of winning, concentration ratio, and Herfindahl–Hirschman Index. The results show that both the men’s and women’s leagues have been relatively balanced over time. Implications regarding competitive balance and other league policy considerations are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study utilizes Nielsen ratings to estimate the factors that influence viewership for Bowl Championship Series telecasts. Our modeling demonstrates increased start-of-game ratings for contests of higher absolute quality, but not of anticipated higher relative quality. Little support is generated for the notion of consumer preference for scoring. However, the relationship between outcome uncertainty and television ratings is dynamic as consumers initially prefer more certain games, but ratings increase systematically throughout a contest when the outcome of that contest becomes more uncertain. Preferences also exist for games in which actual outcomes match pregame expectations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This research examines the within-game television ratings of regular season NFL games across three distinct viewership markets. Specifically, we operationalize our markets as follows-winning market denotes that of the team winning the game, losing market denotes the market of the losing squad, and all other markets where the game was broadcast were pooled in the neutral market category. Our modeling demonstrates that ratings changes attributable to scoring margin are essentially similar in neutral and losing markets, but different than winning markets. Implications related to the NFL's policy on televising uncompetitive games in neutral markets are further examined, concluding that the relationship between final scoring margin and audience interest is nuanced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We address potential racial bias by Major League Baseball umpires with respect to ball–strike calls. We offer a number of econometric specifications to test the robustness of the results, adding the role of implicit and explicit monitoring as well as pitch location. Our analysis shows mixed results regarding the matching of umpire and pitcher race. We conclude that evidence of own-race bias is sensitive to specification and methodology. How results can differ based on different data sets, specifications, time periods, and race classifications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]