Contest Outcome Uncertainty and Fan Decisions: A Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Outcome uncertainty represents a central, defining area of sports economic research. Contest outcome uncertainty (COU), the idea that fan expectations about game outcomes affects attendance decisions, receives substantial attention in the literature, including many papers published in this journal. The standard model of fan decisions under uncertainty generates two diametrically opposed predictions about the COU-attendance relationship, depending on fan preferences, generating tension in the empirical literature. We undertake a meta-analysis of the empirical COU literature to assess empirical support for these predictions. We identify more than 500 empirical model specifications reported in 97 COU papers. The results slightly favor the loss aversion version of the model, but the literature contains no consensus. Sport analyzed and choice of COU proxy variable have no relationship to reported results. Simple OLS and panel data methods generate much of the evidence, highlighting the importance of using causal inference methods in future research.