IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/apeclt/v24y2017i19p1399-1402.html

Star quality and competitive balance? Television audience demand for English Premier League football reconsidered

Author

Listed:
  • N. Scelles

Abstract

The aim of this article is to investigate the determinants of television audience for English Premier League (EPL) football matches during the 2013–2014 season (n = 154). The model is adapted from Buraimo and Simmons (2015) who concluded that star quality was an important determinant of television audiences for the EPL over the 2000–2008 period, whereas uncertainty of outcome and championship, Europe and relegation contention were not. Their measures for contention are replaced by indicators based on Scelles et al.’s (2013b, 2016) competitive intensity. Results show a significant positive impact of star quality but also championship and Champions League intensity and no significant impact of Europa League, potential Europa League and relegation intensity. Based on these results, the article suggests that the EPL should encourage both star quality and competitive balance so that all teams can be competitive in terms of the title or qualification for the UEFA Champions League. Given the differences in revenue generation between English teams, the best way to achieve both star quality and competitive balance would be through the introduction of a European Super League. However, this conclusion based on television audience contradicts that of Scelles et al. (2016) based on stadium attendance.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:apeclt:v:24:y:2017:i:19:p:1399-1402
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2017.1282125
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/13504851.2017.1282125
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2017.1282125?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

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen Allan, 2004. "Satellite television and football attendance: the not so super effect," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(2), pages 123-125.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Nicolas Scelles & Christophe Durand & Liliane Bonnal & Daniel Goyeau & Wladimir Andreff, 2013. "My team is in contention? Nice, I go to the stadium! Competitive intensity in the French football Ligue 1," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(3), pages 2365-2378.
    5. 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)

    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. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    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. 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.
    8. Besters, Lucas, 2018. "Economics of professional football," Other publications TiSEM d9e6b9b7-a17b-4665-9cca-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Shanshan Li & Kihan Kim, 2025. "Factors affecting audience demand for professional football game videos: an analysis of post-game highlight videos on streaming platforms," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-12, December.
    12. 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.
    13. Jyh-How Huang & Chung-Yi Lu & Yu-Chia Hsu, 2023. "Potential Baseball Fan Engagement: The Determinants of a New Television Audience in the Chinese Professional Baseball League during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-14, February.
    14. Adam Cox, 2018. "Spectator Demand, Uncertainty of Results, and Public Interest," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 3-30, January.
    15. 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.
    16. Christian Gjersing Nielsen & Rasmus K. Storm & Tor Georg Jakobsen, 2019. "The impact of English Premier League broadcasts on Danish spectator demand: a small league perspective," Journal of Business Economics, Springer, vol. 89(6), pages 633-653, August.
    17. 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.
    18. Guironnet, Jean-Pascal, 2023. "Competitive intensity and industry performance of professional sports," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 126(C).
    19. 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.
    20. Kunz-Kaltenhäuser, Philipp, 2023. "Sports teams' home market size in the digital age: Analyzing social media drawing power," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 175, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:taf:apeclt:v:24:y:2017:i:19:p:1399-1402. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RAEL20 .

    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.