Paul, Rodney J. "Variations in NHL Attendance: the Impact of Violence, Scoring, and Regional Rivalries." American Journal of Economics and Sociology 62 (2003): 345-364.

In recent years, NHL attendance has been increasing across the league. This paper poses the following question: What factors determine the attendance for individual games? The main focus is the analysis of hockey specific factors such as scoring, violence, and an unbalanced schedule with regional rivals. The empirical model is set up as follows:

ATTN= +OPNIGHT+WEEKEND+OCT+LATE+BASE+FOOT+BASK+POP+INC+PLAYOFF+RD2+PTS+PPG+GF+GPG+FTPG+VPPG+VGPG+VFTPG+DIV+NONCON+CANOPP+

Attendance (ATTN)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Opening Night (OPNIGHT)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Weekend (Fri, Sat, Sun)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Months (OCT, LATE)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Points Per Game—both Home and Visitor (PPG, VPPG)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Goals Per Game—both Home and Visitor (GPG, VGPG)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Fights Per Game—both Home and Visitor (FPG, VFPG)—NHL.com—Team Logs

Playoff Appearance (PLAYOFF)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Winning a Round in Playoffs (RD2)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Points (PTS)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Penalty Minutes (PM)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Goals For (GF)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Division Opponent (DIV)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Non-Conference Opponent (NONCON)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Canadian Opponent (CAN)—The Hockey News Yearbook

Population (POP)—For U.S. teams, from the U.S. Statistical Abstract for the Metro Area. For Canadian teams, data is from Statistics Canada.

Income Per Capita (INC)—For U.S. teams, from the U.S. Statistical Abstract for the Metro Area. For Canadian teams, data is from Statistics Canada. For conversion of income figures into U.S. dollars, exchange rate data from International Financial Statistics were used.

Empirical results show that teams that fight more often draw more fans, and this tendency is magnified in the U.S. Surprisingly, this study found that teams that score more actually have smaller attendance figures. This paper concludes that fans have a preference for teams that win and have tendencies towards fighting. Also, increased divisional match-ups have increased attendance across the league.