TY  - JOUR
AB  - Purpose The purpose of this paper is to use financial market prices formed in betting markets as a measure of uncertainty of outcome and other factors as it relates to hockey attendance in three top European leagues, the KHL, SHL, and Liiga. This is the first study of European hockey to use betting market odds to estimate the impact of home team win probability and uncertainty of outcome on attendance.Design/methodology/approach The design of this study is a multivariate regression model with log of attendance and percentage of arena capacity as dependent variables in two separate regressions. Controlling for other factors, the role of the home team win probability and its square are explored for individual game attendance.Findings Fans of the KHL and SHL are found to prefer to see their home team win, but also exhibit strong preferences for uncertainty of outcome. Fans of Liiga prefer to see the home team win, but do not exhibit as strong a preference for uncertainty of outcome. This differs from recent findings in the sport of baseball and from previous findings for the NHL.Practical implications Having a competitive league is not only important for television ratings, but also for in-person attendance in these European hockey leagues. Importance of uncertainty of outcome varies across leagues.Originality/value The paper uses financial market prices, betting market odds, as a measure of game expectations (home team win probability) and uncertainty of outcome and applies it to a new setting for three of the top European hockey leagues. The findings illustrate that uncertainty of outcome is important for the KHL and SHL, but statistically insignificant for Liiga.
VL  - 42
IS  - 9
SN  - 0307-4358
DO  - 10.1108/MF-01-2016-0016
UR  - https://doi.org/10.1108/MF-01-2016-0016
AU  - Paul Rodney
AU  - Conetta Colby
AU  - Losak Jeremy
PY  - 2016
Y1  - 2016/01/01
TI  - Betting market prices, outcome uncertainty, and hockey attendance in Russia, Sweden, and Finland
T2  - Managerial Finance
PB  - Emerald Group Publishing Limited
SP  - 852
EP  - 865
Y2  - 2024/05/08
ER  -