Study Examines Why Americans are Addicted to Sports
Ticket prices for professional sporting events are lower than conventional economic theory would predict. One possible explanation for this anomaly is that lower ticket prices encourage attendance at future games, thanks to habit formation or "addictive" behavior among fans. A new study published in Contemporary Economic Policy examines this behavior among American and Korean baseball fans, and finds that this theory successfully predicts this behavior in American (but not Korean) baseball fans. It suggests that this habit formation may be rooted in the basic interaction of culture and human nature.