Detroit Lions experience the lowest NFL revenue at $452 million. In this study, Diehl et al.
(2015) definition of revenue is used as this study also assumes that tickets are priced in the
inelastic portion of demand, meaning that franchises price tickets at a level lower than the profit-
maximizing price. Therefore, for this study, we view the NFL team’s revenue as the total gate
receipts divided by the total attendance, plus non-ticket stadium revenues such as parking,
merchandising, and concession sales (Diehl et al., 2015; Depken, 2001; Scully, 1989).
There are seven independent variables used to investigate the determinants of total team
revenue. Appendix A provides the acronyms, descriptions, and data sources for each variable
used in the study. First, Pop
t
(the regional population of the home city t) represents the market
size of a specific team. Variable #2 is Att
t
, which simply represents the average attendance
throughout the 2022 season for NFL team t. Followed by Cap
t
, the total stadium capacity of team
t. The study also uses PTR
t
, representing the amount of other professional sports teams located
within the same state or region as team t, whether the team is in the NFL or any of the other three
major North American professional leagues. This study also introduces “variables of prestige”.
The first prestige variable is W%
t
, which is the specific 2021 season winning percentage of team
t. The next variable of prestige utilized was ProB
1
, which is the number of Pro Bowlers expected
to play on team t’s roster in the 2022 season, this variable displays the number of all-stars a team
has on its roster. The final prestige variable is SB
t
, this is considered the main variable of prestige
as it represents Super Bowl championship titles, which is something not every NFL team has
attained and is a variable that is often neglected in this area of research.
=
+
1
+
2
+
3
3
+
4
%
+
5
+
6
+
7
+
8
+
(Model III)
The last model that is tested in the study pertains directly to a specific NFL team’s
average ticket price. ATP
t
represents the average ticket price of a specific team, t. Unlike TR
t
,
ATP
t
does not have a definition to it as it is simply the average of all gate receipt and secondary
market prices taken at the end of the 2021 season. The data on average ticket prices derive from
Alan Snel’s, from LVSportsBiz.com, “fan cost index” which ranks Las Vegas Raider tickets
most expensive at $153.47 and ranks Las Angeles Chargers tickets the least expensive at $80.38.
Because this study does not consider other costs for fans associated with ticket prices such as
costs for parking, concessions, and merchandising, this study only includes the average ticket