Determinants of Attendance at Sport Events : What affected attendance at Tappara home games during the 2014-2018 Liiga regular seasons?

Abstract

Decades ago the airline and hotel industries pioneered methods for changing prices in real time. This type of approach was developed in order to keep pace with the fluctuating nature of customers and changing levels of consumer demand. This demand-based approach was named revenue management. Contrary to the early adopters, the sports industry has been slow to move away from their traditional cost-based pricing approach. The growth of operating costs in combination with the emergence of vibrant secondary ticket markets has forced sports organizations to reconsider their pricing strategies. The adaptation of dynamic pricing has seen success, especially in the North American sports market. Still, utilization of dynamic pricing is sparse in the Finnish market.

Research within dynamic pricing and its potential benefits is still limited. This is especially true in the context of Finnish sports and ice hockey. This thesis utilizes previous research on attendance and price determinants in the North American market with the purpose of studying the potential of dynamic pricing and determinants of attendance in the Finnish ice hockey market.