Abstract
This chapter investigates the effects of customer discrimination and outcome uncertainty on Taiwanese television viewers by using World Baseball Classic (WBC) match data. The micro data of TV ratings per minute provide comprehensive insights into the behavior of viewers. After controlling for players’ performance on the field and the contemporaneous errors associated with the dependent variables, the results show that TV ratings were higher when Taiwanese and Asian players played. Taiwanese TV viewers exhibited customer discrimination favoring Taiwanese and Asian players but against players of other nationality; the largest effect of Taiwanese customer discrimination of this variety was against South Africa. Moreover, total points scored are significantly positively related to TV ratings in the analysis. Coefficients of pitch-by-pitch uncertainty close to the end of a game are positively related to TV ratings. The evidence supports the hypothesis of outcome uncertainty.
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JEL Classification: J71, L82, L83
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- 1.
With perfect competition and constant-returns-to-scale (CRS) technology, the former two sources of wage disparity are only short-run phenomena. Later Kahn (1991) showed that customer-based discrimination could persist in general equilibrium even with CRS technology and nondiscriminating firms. Unlike employer or employee discrimination, customer discrimination can cause long-run wage differentials when the previous two conditions hold.
- 2.
Censoring occurs when the independent variables for the entire sample are observed, while for some observations there is only limited information regarding the dependent variable.
- 3.
- 4.
Szymanski and Késenne (2004) have indicated that it is widely believed that a sporting competition will be more attractive and more entertaining the greater the degree of game uncertainty between teams. According to Szymanski’s (2003) classification of professional sports, there are three types of uncertainties, namely, match uncertainty, seasonal/championship uncertainty, and between-season uncertainty. This chapter focuses on match uncertainty, defined as the degree of uncertainty resulting from the relative capabilities of two competing teams.
- 5.
After a 3-year gap between the first two installments of the tournament, plans called for the WBC to be repeated every 4 years following the 2009 event, with the third installment of the Classic to occur in 2013.
- 6.
Entertainment and Sports Programming Network 2 (ESPN2) is a sister station of ESPN.
- 7.
For example, games were televised on TV Asahi in Japan. Except for Taiwan, no other countries had access to Videoland Max and Videoland Sport at that time, and thus fans in other countries did not influence the variation in TV ratings. This makes it possible to analyze the effects of customer preference and regionalism on TV ratings in Taiwan.
- 8.
In the first round, Pool A played at the Tokyo Dome, Pool B played in Mexico City, Pool C played at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, and Pool D played in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In the second round, Pool 1 games were at Petco Park in San Diego, and Pool 2 games were at the Dolphin Stadium in suburban Miami. The semifinals and finals were scheduled for Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles.
- 9.
Rating refers to the percentage of households tuned in at any given moment. The ratings are collected by ACNielsen Taiwan. They set meters to tabulate these figures and allow the company to monitor viewing on a minute-to-minute basis. Editors Note: US researchers may be wondering, but it is much easier to get Nielsen data in Taiwan and use it as has the author.
- 10.
For a Taiwanese audience, a black player and a Hispanic player seem to be indifference, so both of them are counted as blacks.
- 11.
Regression with robust standard errors using the Huber–White sandwich estimators (Huber 1967; White 1980) can deal with a collection of minor concerns about failure to meet assumptions, such as problems about normality, heteroskedasticity, or certain observations that exhibit large residuals, leverage, or influence. For such problems, robustness with robust standard errors may effectively deal with these concerns.
- 12.
The work of matching players’ performance with TV Ratings is time-consuming. The author would like to thank Kai-wen Yu for valuable research assistance.
- 13.
The website of the MLB is http://www.mlb.com/wbc/2009/schedule/.
- 14.
The author thanks Rodney Fort and Young Hoon Lee for providing this viewpoint.
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Jane, Wj. (2015). Customer Discrimination and Outcome Uncertainty in the World Baseball Classic: The Case of the Taiwanese Television Audience. In: Lee, Y., Fort, R. (eds) The Sports Business in The Pacific Rim. Sports Economics, Management and Policy, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10037-1_6
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