## 7 Discussion
To further validate this finding, we analyzed the total revenue generated in the local POI while the Saint Louis Cardinals played away games in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. There was a similar increase in revenue compared to other teams, suggesting that the Saint Louis Cardinals have a significant impact on local businesses during games against Milwaukee and Pittsburgh. Conversely, the Oakland Athletics had the lowest revenue generated in our POI (Figure 9). We also conducted the same analysis in the 4 kilometers radius of the stadium and found consistent results with the larger study area. It is important to acknowledge that the transaction data analyzed in this study is not comprehensive and does not represent all POI within the study area. Rather, the data were solely derived from Safe Graph, and, therefore, may not capture the complete range of economic activities in the study area. The results from the spatial analysis revealed that clusters and hotspots of people tend to concentrate more around the stadium, indicating that baseball games may have a positive impact on the local city economy by driving more people to that area. This finding is consistent with previous research in the literature review, which suggests that sports events can bring economic and social benefits to local communities [22; 62]. The clustering of people in the areas near the stadium is significant because it implies that baseball games are attracting more visitors, which can result in increased revenue for local businesses and create job opportunities for the community. This finding is consistent with studies that have shown a positive relationship between sports events and local economic development. In addition to our previous analysis, we tracked the location of 336 individuals who attended the Saint Louis Cardinals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates game on 12 May 2019. We captured the individuals whose first location was at the Cardinal's Busch Stadium during the game time and traced their location 3 h after the game. This filter made it clear that the majority of the visitors are from outside of the Saint Louis City area, coming from all around the SLMA to attend the game (Figure 10). Figure 9: Comparison of total revenue generated by teams in our POI by home and away games. This chart only captures a subset of the spending in the points of interest, as it is based on data from Safe Graph and does not represent 100% of the spending activity. Tracking individuals who attended a specific Cardinals versus Pirates game revealed that nearly 80% resided outside of the host city, with 58% returning home post-match while a minority visited local establishments--nonetheless highlighting spillover effects drawing metro-wide patronage (Figure 10). Comparing machine learning models for predicting event-induced spending that included spatial attributes versus those that excluded such location data showed significant differences; moreover, incorporating longitude and latitude information improved predictive accuracy. Specifically, XGBoost slightly outperformed alternatives like Random Forest. Attempts at tuning model hyperparameters did marginally lift performance over baseline models but introduced overfitting risks. Overall, the geospatial analysis underscores baseball games' economic influence in widening foot traffic across the broader region, while machine learning validates the potency of location-based features. The predictive models used in this study have the potential for out-of-sample analysis, such as forecasting business visits before or after games, and further research could validate and refine these predictions in different contexts. Though this study primarily examines in-sample data, the techniques used, especially the machine learning models, offer a promising avenue for out-of-sample analysis, such as forecasting visits to local businesses before or after games. Further research could validate and refine these models for broader predictive use, ensuring that they perform well across different datasets and contexts.