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The Rise (and Fall) of the Arena Football League

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Abstract

After 22 seasons of competition, the Arena Football League (AFL) suspended operations in 2009. Play resumed in 2010, but attendance has declined dramatically. We examine the determinants of the demand for tickets to AFL games using data from the league’s first incarnation from 1987 to 2008; we find that the honeymoon effect for first-generation AFL teams was very short. Teams lost about 1,700 fans per game on average in their second year of operation, a sizeable loss given league average of 11,000 fans. Our results also suggest that Major League Baseball (MLB) serves as a direct competitor to the AFL, and this offers insights into why the AFL has struggled in its second incarnation (2010–2012).

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Notes

  1. Of the 30 NHL teams operating in 2011–2012, only 16 will be competing in a market with an NBA team present within the metropolitan area. It is rare for the NBA and the NHL to compete in smaller markets, and, when this competition does occur, it usually leads to one of the franchises having a difficult time attracting fans. For example, the Florida Panthers and Phoenix Coyotes are commonly cited as franchises that may be forced to relocate. Examples of cities that have been unable to support NBA and NHL franchises are Vancouver, with the Grizzlies (now the Memphis Grizzlies) and the Canucks, and Atlanta, with the Hawks and the Thrashers (relocated to Winnipeg for 2011–2012).

  2. Relatively close proximity means within 100 miles for a “local team” and within a range of 101 to 250 miles for a “regional team”. Gitter and Rhoads view a local team as a team that one could visit for an evening game after work and reasonably return home in the same evening. The regional team is a team that one could visit for a game by making a day trip to the team’s park.

  3. The website http://www.arenafan.com/ has detailed data on the attendance and history of the AFL (Kaufmann 2013).

  4. Accessed at http://www.bea.gov/regional/reis/ (U.S. Department of Commerce 2013).

  5. Models with ln(attendance) as the outcome provide broadly similar results.

  6. This renaming effect is not significant when a team’s tenure in the league is modeled with a quadratic.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Davidson College, Davidson, NC, USA

    Mark C. Foley & Fred H. Smith

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  1. Mark C. Foley
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  2. Fred H. Smith
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Correspondence to Fred H. Smith.

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Foley, M.C., Smith, F.H. The Rise (and Fall) of the Arena Football League. Atl Econ J 41, 439–450 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-013-9390-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11293-013-9390-2

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