First, I’d like for you to delve a little deeper into the Fan Cost Index (FCI).  To view a comprehensive list of FCI numbers across professional sports leagues, visit this Business of Sport blog (Links to an external site.) and review the interactive information there on the Fan Cost Index (FCI) from 1991 to 2017. It’s a little older, but the interactive charts make it worth a look. If you want to get crazy with the data, Rodney Fort of the University of Michigan’s Sports Economics program posts a massive data set of FCI-related information on his site, here (Links to an external site.).

Now that you’ve taken a look at how much it costs to attend a game, I want you to consider how these and other factors impact game attendance and ticket sales.

Select two teams from the FCI in the same league (i.e. MLB, NFL, NHL, NBA).  Compare their FCI with their average game attendance (you can find this fairly easily online) and provide your insight as to what other factors may impact these two numbers. 

Please include the following (5 points):

The FCI for each team (for three consecutive years)
The average attendance for each team (for three consecutive years)
Each team’s Win-Loss record (for three consecutive years)
Then, write a short assessment on whether or not you see any relationship between winning, game attendance, and the FCI for either team.

Now, let’s consider how other factors play into the FCI.  In this section, I’d like for you to include the following (5 points):

Any three additional factors that you think may impact game attendance/ticket sales numbers – consider things like (just ideas, you can include any three other factors that you think are relevant to your team):
Any major ‘star’ players on each team’s roster (in three consecutive years)
Each team’s city demographics (again, easily accessible online)
Whether or not the city is a tourist destination
Any other factors of your choosing
Lastly, I’d like for you to consider – from the point of view of a professional sports executive – whether or not attendance at games really matters.  As you read in this article from the Intelligencer (Links to an external site.) earlier in the module, “Attendance has been down each of the last seven years in MLB, and MLBs revenue has been up every single season.” Please provide a brief commentary on if you think this matters in professional sports: how worried should professional sports executives be about declining attendance? (5 points).