The impact of fighting in the NHL on attendance

Abstract

ABSTRACT Sport spectators often enjoy violence in sport games they attend. Our research note attempts to provide an examination of how violence in National Hockey League (NHL) games, specifically fighting, impacts regular season attendance as a percentage of its capacity. Furthermore, we look to understand if there are differences in this relationship between US and Canadian franchises along with differences after the NHL adopted policies to deter fighting in the game. Our sample period covers the 1980/1981 through 2019/2020 seasons. Results for Tobit regression estimations find fighting regardless of time period or country does not impact regular season attendance. However, we do find differences between the countries after new fighting rules were adopted. We provide some discussion as to why these findings occur, and how future leisure research can provide some further explanation into this relationship.