Halftime Matters: The direct impact of highly-rated halftime shows on guest satisfaction and increased spend

For many guests, the sporting experience is no longer focused entirely on the team performance, but rather the overall experience including those ancillary elements that cause frictions or enhance their visit. From the wait time parking to the greeting on entry, to the food price, options, and quality available at concessions stands; each of these elements serves as a “moment of truth” that impacts the guests’ overall experience beyond the final score.

Entertainment has long been viewed as a cost center by teams, something that isn’t critical to fan enjoyment and incremental spending, but that view is leaving tens of thousands of dollars on the table when teams under program the show.  While each sport has its own unique entertainment feel and different entertainment elements resonate more with fans, halftime is a marquee moment in sports that have that component. Football and basketball both see notable and significant lift from halftime and the business case for creating engaging content in those moments is substantial.

There is a wide variety of performances and games that have come to be associated with halftime, and guests often look forward to this different form of entertainment. A low-quality halftime act (be it a group sale or a paid act that falls flat or one saturated with sponsor ads) has a notable, detrimental impact on overall satisfaction scores of up to 11%, which can have a direct negative impact on that fan’s willingness to spend on merchandise and concession. A highly rated halftime show (novelty group, tried and true act or elite band performance) can have the opposite pull, leading to higher scores and seeing jumps of up to $10 in incremental spend per person.

            As teams continue to prioritize their halftime entertainment, it is important to understand the impact that these experiences have on guest satisfaction.

The Data

            Data was collected from 18 teams across different sports and leagues during the 2023-24 season. During games, guests would have the opportunity to complete a survey about their experience at the event, in which they were asked questions pertaining to their satisfaction with different elements of the event. This included categories such as entertainment, customer service, and overall experience. The survey also included a section for guests to leave comments, allowing for open-ended responses on what they viewed especially positively or saw as areas for improvement.

            Within the survey, participants were asked to rate their overall experience at the game, using a Likert scale from 1 to 5. This provided a measure of overall satisfaction for each guest who completed the survey. Guests with incomplete responses that did not include the overall satisfaction or halftime ratings were excluded from the analyses.

Analysis

            Halftime Entertainment ratings were relatively consistent across leagues. However, there were clear, significant differences in ratings by gender, in which males tended to rate halftime lower than females (p < 0.001). Similarly, season ticket holders consistently rated halftime lower than non-season ticket holders.

            Going beyond this summary view of the data, we wanted to look more closely at the relationship between these ratings. This information is important for teams to consider, as it provides a crucial fan-based metric of performance evaluation. Identifying these trends can help teams make informed decisions about game day operations, and the specific components that fans value. As such, we created a heatmap and bar plot of the data to help visualize the distributions.

Heatmap and Bar Plot of Overall Satisfaction vs. Halftime Entertainment Ratings

            These graphs suggest that guests who rate overall satisfaction highly also tend to provide high scores for halftime entertainment. They indicate that a large number of guests who score halftime entertainment as a 5 (the highest score) also score overall satisfaction as a 5. Indeed, when we conducted a chi-squared test of independence to determine whether the two variables are related, we found that there was a significant effect (p < 0.001) of halftime entertainment scores on overall satisfaction ratings.

            In further analyses of the data, we determined that the same trend emerges amongst different leagues. For example, the data visualization and chi-squared test revealed a significant relationship between halftime entertainment and overall satisfaction ratings for collegiate men’s basketball teams as well:

Heatmap and Bar Plot of Overall Satisfaction vs. Halftime Entertainment Ratings

            This has important implications for guest spending behaviors as well, since the data shows that across leagues, higher halftime ratings is associated with a greater number of outliers for higher spending on food, alcoholic beverages, and merchandise. This suggests that a captivating halftime show can not only boost overall satisfaction, but can also increase revenue at the events; or put differently-fans who feel they are being entertained spend more on food, drinks and merchandise. The graphs below illustrate this concept for merchandise spending across different leagues. As fans enjoy halftime more, a greater number are spending far above average at games. The analysis eliminated unrealistic outliers, but important to keep in mind with merchandise, a jersey alone can cost $150+, so seeing outliers of $200-400 incremental spend is not unrealistic in professional and collegiate sport team stores.

           These findings are consistent across games, events and different audiences. The consistency in the game-over-game comparison implies that the participants' experiences are stable, and that halftime entertainment remains solidly as an important variable. This emphasizes the effect that halftime entertainment can have on overall satisfaction throughout the course of the season, having far-reaching implications beyond just a single game.

Conclusion

            These results indicate a significant relationship between halftime entertainment scores and overall satisfaction ratings, suggesting that guest perception of the halftime entertainment could influence their overall satisfaction with the event. This underscores the importance of halftime not only as a break in the event, but as a crucial component in shaping the overall guest experience. By investing in high-quality and engaging halftime entertainment, teams have the opportunity to significantly enhance guest satisfaction, potentially leading to increased attendance and more positive sentiments. As such, it is imperative that teams dedicate resources to creating a positive halftime experience, ensuring that it meets or exceeds guest expectations. This can ultimately contribute to the guests’ overall perception of the event and increase their likelihood of returning to an event in the future.