Seat Value Based Revenue Implications for Baseball

We study how patrons attending a baseball game value different seats in a professional league stadium based on their location and view. Most surprisingly, we find that customers seated in symmetric seats on left and right fields might derive very different valuations from the game. Thus, commonly followed symmetric pricing mechanisms in baseball stadiums might be inefficient from a revenue management perspective. Furthermore, customers perceive higher net valuations at distantly located upper deck seats and some outfield seats, possibly because of easy availability and low prices. Consistent with the notion of baseball being an experience good, more frequent customers to the baseball stadium experience lower variance in their valuations of the game compared to first time visitors. Thus, we quantify the impact of repeated visits on customers’ learning of the valuation a seat might provide. Younger customers have higher variance in their valuations compared to customers who are older. Our research on customer valuations quantifies the significant influence of the seat locations on customers’ ex-post valuations of the game. The findings provide a novel opportunity for the teams to price tickets differentially and asymmetrically to accommodate varying seat valuations, using seat value measures in different sections of the stadium.