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The Impact of the Soccer Schedule on TV Viewership and Stadium Attendance

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  • Chang Wang
  • Dries Goossens
  • Martina Vandebroek

Abstract

In the past decade, television (TV) broadcasters have been investing a huge amount of money for the Belgian Pro League broadcasting rights. These companies pursue an audience rating maximization, which depends heavily on the schedule of the league matches. At the same time, clubs try to maximize their home attendance and find themselves affected by the schedule as well. Our article aims to capture the Belgian soccer fans’ preferences with respect to scheduling options, both for watching matches on TV and in the stadium. We carried out a discrete choice experiment using an online survey questionnaire distributed on a national scale. The choice sets are based on three match characteristics: month, kickoff time, and quality of the opponent. The first part of this survey concerns TV broadcasting aspects. The second part includes questions about stadium attendance. The choice data are first analyzed with a conditional logit model which assumes homogenous preferences. Then a mixed logit model is fit to model the heterogeneity among the fans. The estimates are used to calculate the expected utility of watching a Belgian Pro League match for every possible setting, either on TV or in the stadium. These predictions are validated in terms of the real audience rating and home attendance data. Our results can be used to improve the scheduling process of the Belgian Pro League in order to persuade more fans to watch the matches on TV or in a stadium.

Suggested Citation

  • Chang Wang & Dries Goossens & Martina Vandebroek, 2018. "The Impact of the Soccer Schedule on TV Viewership and Stadium Attendance," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 82-112, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jospec:v:19:y:2018:i:1:p:82-112
    DOI: 10.1177/1527002515612875
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    Cited by:

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    3. Goller, Daniel & Krumer, Alex, 2019. "Let’s meet as usual: Do games on non-frequent days differ? Evidence from top European soccer leagues," Economics Working Paper Series 1907, University of St. Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science.
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    5. Farai Jena & Barry Reilly, 2022. "Are spectator preferences weaker for cup compared to league competitions? Evidence from Irish soccer," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(9), pages 835-841, May.
    6. Goller, Daniel & Krumer, Alex, 2020. "Let's meet as usual: Do games played on non-frequent days differ? Evidence from top European soccer leagues," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 286(2), pages 740-754.
    7. 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.
    8. Jeremy K. Nguyen & Adam Karg & Abbas Valadkhani & Heath McDonald, 2022. "Predicting individual event attendance with machine learning: a ‘step-forward’ approach," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(27), pages 3138-3153, June.
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    10. Alex Krumer & Michael Lechner, 2018. "Midweek Effect On Soccer Performance: Evidence From The German Bundesliga," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 56(1), pages 193-207, January.

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