CURRENT AFFAIRS
Take me out to the ballgame For a large chunk of the world,
attend and less profitable for the bottom line. That’s the finding from a study published earlier this year in American Economic Journal: Applied Economics . A trio of researchers examined five decades of weather reports from MLB games and how they correlate with fan attendance and club revenue. The study, “The Willingness to Pay for a Cooler Day: Evidence from 50 Years of Major League Baseball Games”, takes a unique look at one effect of the warming world – not one of catastrophic upheaval but one of discomfort. After all, fans are
summertime means baseball. Fans flock to ballparks across North America, Latin America and East Asia to catch some sun and perhaps a fly ball. No league is bigger to the game than Major League Baseball (MLB), where 30 teams from the USA and Canada field rosters of players from nearly every continent. Yet watching these teams in their natural habitats, open-air stadiums, may be getting more and more uncomfortable as rising temperatures make outdoor games less desirable to
“Rising temperatures make outdoor games
less desirable to attend and less profitable for the bottom line.”
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