A new lease on life? A survival analysis approach to the study of professional sport stadiums and arenas

Purpose The length of time that a sport facility remains in use is a critical piece of information for sport organizations and the municipalities that allocate hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to fund them, rather than contributing funding to societal issues. Despite this fact, prior approaches have either truncated their durations at present day or arbitrarily analyzed subsets of data. Design/methodology/approach As a solution, we analyze a dataset of more than 200 professional sport facilities using survival analysis, and discuss differences based on type of facility, tenants, and whether it is a single or multi-tenant facility. Findings Results indicate that lifetimes vary based on whether measures of central tendency or survival methods are applied. Specifically, results reveal that facility lifetimes are considerably longer than previously calculated. Research limitations/implications This study makes a unique and novel contribution to the stadium literature in its utilization of an advanced data analysis technique to quantify the lifetime of sport facilities. Practical implications These results provide empirical evidence that municipalities negotiating with sport franchises may have a substantiation for significantly longer lease agreements, a novel managerial implication. Originality/value These data may be used by financiers to better assess and plan for the impending death of a facility based on a variety of factors.