IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ejores/v298y2022i2p644-655.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Armchair fans: Modelling audience size for televised football matches

Author

Listed:
  • Buraimo, Babatunde
  • Forrest, David
  • McHale, Ian G.
  • Tena, J.D.

Abstract

Modelling audience size for televised football matches has utility for a number of stakeholders. In the short-term it can inform the choice of broadcasters as to which matches to show and decisions of firms regarding how much to bid for advertising slots during the game. For elite clubs and leagues, for which television rights is their principal source of revenue, it offers a means of understanding which match characteristics will draw the largest audience and this should inform long-term decisions on how to structure their competitions. The paper argues that previous modelling in this area has typically depended on an inappropriate measure of audience size and unsatisfactory metrics to capture important match characteristics such as the quality of the talent on show and the significance of the match for the championship or relegation. In contrast to this prior literature, the present paper draws on sport analytics to derive its measures of player talent and match significance. This makes a material difference to findings from modelling audience size for 790 English Premier League matches between 2013 and 2019. For example, it identifies elevated interest for matches potentially significant for end-of-season outcomes. This has implications when organisers consider the optimal structure of the competition and revenue sharing arrangements between member clubs of the league. For the wider television industry, we show that measurement of audience size (and some results from modelling) are sensitive to whether focus is on the whole programme or just its core content (in this case the match itself).

Suggested Citation

  • Buraimo, Babatunde & Forrest, David & McHale, Ian G. & Tena, J.D., 2022. "Armchair fans: Modelling audience size for televised football matches," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 298(2), pages 644-655.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:298:y:2022:i:2:p:644-655
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejor.2021.06.046
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0377221721005622
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ejor.2021.06.046?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. N. Scelles, 2017. "Star quality and competitive balance? Television audience demand for English Premier League football reconsidered," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(19), pages 1399-1402, November.
    2. Robert Butler & Patrick Massey, 2019. "Has Competition in the Market for Subscription Sports Broadcasting Benefited Consumers? The Case of the English Premier League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(4), pages 603-624, May.
    3. Ioannis Asimakopoulos & John Goddard, 2004. "Forecasting football results and the efficiency of fixed-odds betting," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 23(1), pages 51-66.
    4. Scott Tainsky & Jason Winfree, 2010. "Short-Run Demand and Uncertainty of Outcome in Major League Baseball," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 37(3), pages 197-214, November.
    5. Raul Caruso & Francesco Addesa & Marco Di Domizio, 2019. "The Determinants of the TV Demand for Soccer: Empirical Evidence on Italian Serie A for the Period 2008-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 25-49, January.
    6. Trung Minh Dang & Ross Booth & Robert Brooks & Adi Schnytzer, 2015. "Do TV Viewers Value Uncertainty of Outcome? Evidence from the Australian Football League," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 91(295), pages 523-535, December.
    7. M B Wright, 2009. "50 years of OR in sport," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 60(1), pages 161-168, May.
    8. Jennett, Nicholas I, 1984. "Attendances, Uncertainty of Outcome and Policy in Scottish League Football," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 31(2), pages 176-198, June.
    9. Scarf, Phil & Parma, Rishikesh & McHale, Ian, 2019. "On outcome uncertainty and scoring rates in sport: The case of international rugby union," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 273(2), pages 721-730.
    10. Babatunde Buraimo & Rob Simmons, 2015. "Uncertainty of Outcome or Star Quality? Television Audience Demand for English Premier League Football," International Journal of the Economics of Business, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(3), pages 449-469, November.
    11. Macdonald Brian, 2012. "Adjusted Plus-Minus for NHL Players using Ridge Regression with Goals, Shots, Fenwick, and Corsi," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-24, October.
    12. Schreyer & Torgler Benno & Schmidt Sascha L., 2018. "Game Outcome Uncertainty and Television Audience Demand: New Evidence from German Football," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 140-161, May.
    13. David Forrest & Robert Simmons & Babatunde Buraimo, 2005. "Outcome Uncertainty And The Couch Potato Audience," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 52(4), pages 641-661, September.
    14. Ian G. McHale & Philip A. Scarf & David E. Folker, 2012. "On the Development of a Soccer Player Performance Rating System for the English Premier League," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 42(4), pages 339-351, August.
    15. Van Reeth, Daam, 2019. "Forecasting Tour de France TV audiences: A multi-country analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 810-821.
    16. Kharrat, Tarak & McHale, Ian G. & Peña, Javier López, 2020. "Plus–minus player ratings for soccer," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(2), pages 726-736.
    17. M. J. Maher, 1982. "Modelling association football scores," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 36(3), pages 109-118, September.
    18. Dominik Schreyer & Benno Torgler, 2018. "On the Role of Race Outcome Uncertainty in the TV Demand for Formula 1 Grands Prix," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(2), pages 211-229, February.
    19. Adam Cox, 2018. "Spectator Demand, Uncertainty of Results, and Public Interest," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 3-30, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Franziska Braschke & Patrick A. Puhani, 2023. "Population Adjustment to Asymmetric Labour Market Shocks in India: A Comparison to Europe and the United States at Two Different Regional Levels," The Indian Journal of Labour Economics, Springer;The Indian Society of Labour Economics (ISLE), vol. 66(1), pages 7-35, March.
    2. Goller, Daniel & Heiniger, Sandro, 2022. "A general framework to quantify the event importance in multi-event contests," Economics Working Paper Series 2204, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
    3. Georgios Nalbantis & Tim Pawlowski & Dominik Schreyer, 2023. "Substitution Effects and the Transnational Demand for European Soccer Telecasts," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(4), pages 407-442, May.
    4. Di Mattia, Alessandro & Krumer, Alex, 2023. "Fewer teams, more games, larger attendance? Evidence from the structural change in basketball's EuroLeague," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 309(1), pages 359-370.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Babatunde Buraimo & David Forrest & Ian G. McHale & J.D. Tena, 2020. "Armchair Fans: New Insights Into The Demand For Televised Soccer," Working Papers 202020, University of Liverpool, Department of Economics.
    2. Daam Van Reeth & Nikita Osokin, 2020. "The Impact of Hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup on Differences in TV Viewership Between Seasoned Football Fans and Occasional Watchers of Football Games in Russia," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(3), pages 256-280, April.
    3. Raul Caruso & Francesco Addesa & Marco Di Domizio, 2019. "The Determinants of the TV Demand for Soccer: Empirical Evidence on Italian Serie A for the Period 2008-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 20(1), pages 25-49, January.
    4. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2018. "Game Outcome Uncertainty and Television Audience Demand: New Evidence from German Football," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 19(2), pages 140-161, May.
    5. Uribe, Rodrigo & Buzeta, Cristian & Manzur, Enrique & Alvarez, Isabel, 2021. "Determinants of football TV audience: The straight and ancillary effects of the presence of the local team on the FIFA world cup," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 454-463.
    6. Dominik Schreyer & Daniel Däuper, 2018. "Determinants of spectator no-show behaviour: first empirical evidence from the German Bundesliga," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 25(21), pages 1475-1480, December.
    7. Besters, Lucas, 2018. "Economics of professional football," Other publications TiSEM d9e6b9b7-a17b-4665-9cca-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    8. Luc Arrondel & Richard Duhautois, 2019. "Are French Football Fans Sensitive to Outcome Uncertainty?," Economie et Statistique / Economics and Statistics, Institut National de la Statistique et des Etudes Economiques (INSEE), issue 513, pages 5-26.
    9. Anthony Macedo & Marta Ferreira Dias & Paulo Reis Mourão, 2023. "European Men's Club Football in the Eyes of Consumers: The Determinants of Television Broadcast Demand," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(5), pages 579-623, June.
    10. Alexander John Bond & Francesco Addesa, 2020. "Competitive Intensity, Fans’ Expectations, and Match-Day Tickets Sold in the Italian Football Serie A, 2012-2015," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 21(1), pages 20-43, January.
    11. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2018. "Game Outcome Uncertainty in the English Premier League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(5), pages 625-644, June.
    12. Alexander John Bond & Francesco Addesa, 2019. "TV demand for the Italian Serie A: star power or competitive intensity?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 39(3), pages 2110-2116.
    13. Dominik Schreyer & Sascha L. Schmidt & Benno Torgler, 2017. "Game Outcome Uncertainty and the Demand for International Football Games: Evidence From the German TV Market," Journal of Media Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(1), pages 31-45, January.
    14. Schreyer, Dominik & Schmidt, Sascha L. & Torgler, Benno, 2016. "Against all odds? Exploring the role of game outcome uncertainty in season ticket holders’ stadium attendance demand," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 192-217.
    15. Georgios Nalbantis & Tim Pawlowski & Dominik Schreyer, 2023. "Substitution Effects and the Transnational Demand for European Soccer Telecasts," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(4), pages 407-442, May.
    16. Fabio Wagner & Holger Preuss & Thomas Könecke, 2021. "A Central Element of Europe’s Football Ecosystem: Competitive Intensity in the “Big Five”," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-20, March.
    17. Taeyeon Oh & Seomgyun Lee & Hayley Jang, 2023. "Outcome Uncertainty and ESports Viewership: The Case of Overwatch League," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 24(8), pages 971-992, December.
    18. Lucas M. Besters & Jan (J.C.) van Ours & Martin A. van Tuijl, 2018. "How outcome uncertainty, loss aversion and team quality affect stadium attendance in Dutch professional football," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 18-082/V, Tinbergen Institute.
    19. Guironnet, Jean-Pascal, 2023. "Competitive intensity and industry performance of professional sports," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    20. Francesco Addesa & Alexander John Bond, 2021. "Determinants of stadium attendance in Italian Serie A: New evidence based on fan expectations," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(12), pages 1-18, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ejores:v:298:y:2022:i:2:p:644-655. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/eor .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.