The Economic Value of Having a Professional Sports Team in a City

Abstract

    There have been some quantitative studies about the economic impact of professional sports teams on local regions, but there hasn’ t been any study in Japan that quantified the value, including the intangible or public goods value of a professional sports team, for a city. The objective of this paper was to estimate the money value, including intangible value, of a professional sports team for a city by using CVM (Contingent Valuation Method) and to find if the evaluation of the public goods aspect of a professional sport team by local residents has a positive effect on WTP (willingness to pay) . We selected the Japanese professional baseball team “A” and conducted CVM surveys in “B” city in which “A” team locates its home stadium. We estimated that the value of “A” team for “B” city is 141~341 million yen minimum, and 488~1,175 million yen maximum for a year and the present value as 2.4~5.9 billion yen minimum and 8.4~20.3 billion yen maximum. And we found that the evaluation of the public goods aspect of a professional sports team by local residents has a positive effect on WTP.