Modelling the European Football Demand for the 2014/2015 Season

Authors : Mustafa Selçuk Özaydin

Pages : 39-52

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Publication Date : 2018-05-31

Article Type : Research

Abstract :Identifying the influential factors on the demand for spectating sports has been a major area of interest for numerous scholars in recent years. The rapid growth of the sports industry in last decades has converted the clubs to firms, players to inputs and fans to customers; hence as in any sector in the absence of customers there is no point of operating the firms. Millions of people are watching the major European league games live, every week from China to Brazil. In Europe, English Premier League and German Bundesliga are the most successful in terms of attracting the crowds to the stands, whereas France and Italian leagues are failing to do so. This paper tries to identify the influential factors on the demand for football in the top five major European leagues- English, German, Spanish, French and Italian- utilizing the tools of econometrics. Once influential factors are identified they can be used to increase the attendance levels which would enable the sustainability of the football industry in Europe and that is the main motivation behind this paper. The industry will stand if and only if fans keep on paying to watch and support their teams. This study reveals that, listed in the order of descending importance, the ticket prices as ratio of average annual personal income, ratio of licensed football players in a country to its population, the level of competition in the league, the number of points gathered by home team, being promoted to the top division and the number of televised games every week are influential factors on the demand for football. 
Keywords : Demand for Football, Football Attendance, La Liga, Premier League, Ligue 1, Serie A, Bundesliga 1