IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/tuiedp/77.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The (monetary) value of competitive balance for sport consumers: A stated preferences approach to European professional football

Author

Listed:
  • Pawlowski, Tim
  • Budzinski, Oliver

Abstract

Ever since the pioneering work of Rottenberg (1956) and Neale (1964), the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis (UOH) has played a major role in the economic analysis of professional sport leagues. However, decades f empirical research have not been successful in establishing clear evidence for the importance of competitive balance (CB) for attendance or TV viewers in European professional football. In order to find possible reasons for the gap between the UOH and (the lack of) its empirical validation, our paper adopts a stated preference approach focused on the fans' perception of CB and its relevance in three European professional football leagues. The results indicate that a tipping point/threshold value of CB exists and that crossing this threshold can lead to massive demand eactions. However, since the threshold has not been reached in the leagues included in the sample, the paper provides a possible explanation for the above mentioned gap.

Suggested Citation

  • Pawlowski, Tim & Budzinski, Oliver, 2012. "The (monetary) value of competitive balance for sport consumers: A stated preferences approach to European professional football," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 77, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:tuiedp:77
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/67113/1/728181894.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Walter C. Neale, 1964. "The Peculiar Economics of Professional Sports," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 1-14.
    2. Simon Rottenberg, 1956. "The Baseball Players' Labor Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64, pages 242-242.
    3. Zou, Ning Ning (Helen) & Hobbs, Jill E., 2006. "Modelling functional food choice and health care impacts: A literature review," Consumer and Market Demand Network Papers 91556, University of Alberta, Department of Resource Economics and Environmental Sociology.
    4. Peel, David A & Thomas, Dennis A, 1992. "The Demand for Football: Some Evidence on Outcome Uncertainty," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 17(2), pages 323-331.
    5. R. A. Hart & J. Hutton & T. Sharot, 1975. "A Statistical Analysis of Association Football Attendances," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 24(3), pages 308-308, November.
    6. Georg Stadtmann & Dirk Czarnitzki, 2002. "Uncertainty of outcome versus reputation: Empirical evidence for the First German Football Division," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 101-112.
    7. Tim Pawlowski, 2013. "Testing the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis in European Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(4), pages 341-367, August.
    8. Brad R. Humphreys, 2002. "Alternative Measures of Competitive Balance in Sports Leagues," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 3(2), pages 133-148, May.
    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. Lahvicka, Jiri, 2013. "Impact of playoffs on seasonal uncertainty in Czech ice hockey Extraliga," MPRA Paper 44608, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Lahvicka, Jiri, 2013. "Does Match Uncertainty Increase Attendance? A Non-Regression Approach," MPRA Paper 48571, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Franziska Prockl & Dirk Semmelroth, 2018. "Perception Versus Reality - Competitive Balance In Major League Soccer From 1996 – 2016," Working Papers Dissertations 36, Paderborn University, Faculty of Business Administration and Economics.

    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. Besters, Lucas, 2018. "Economics of professional football," Other publications TiSEM d9e6b9b7-a17b-4665-9cca-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    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. Tim Pawlowski, 2013. "Testing the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis in European Professional Football," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 14(4), pages 341-367, August.
    4. 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.
    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. Tim Pawlowski & Georgios Nalbantis, 2015. "Competition format, championship uncertainty and stadium attendance in European football - a small league perspective," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(38), pages 4128-4139, August.
    7. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & J. James Reade, 2023. "The Impact of Uncertainty on Fan Interest Surrounding Multiple Outcomes in Open European Football Leagues," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-02, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    8. Budzinski, Oliver & Pawlowski, Tim, 2014. "The behavioural economics of competitive balance: Implications for league policy and championship management," Ilmenau Economics Discussion Papers 89, Ilmenau University of Technology, Institute of Economics.
    9. 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.
    10. Dorian Owen, 2014. "Measurement of competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome," Chapters, in: John Goddard & Peter Sloane (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Professional Football, chapter 3, pages 41-59, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Pedro Garcia-del-Barrio & J. James Reade, 2022. "Does certainty on the winner diminish the interest in sport competitions? The case of formula one," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 63(2), pages 1059-1079, August.
    12. Kevin Alavy & Alison Gaskell & Stephanie Leach & Stefan Szymanski, 2010. "On the Edge of Your Seat: Demand for Football on Television and the Uncertainty of Outcome Hypothesis," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 5(2), pages 75-95, May.
    13. 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.
    14. Jigyu Chung & Young Hoon Lee & Joon-Ho Kang, 2016. "Ex Ante and Ex Post Expectations of Outcome Uncertainty and Baseball Television Viewership," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 17(8), pages 790-812, December.
    15. Lahvicka, Jiri, 2013. "Does Match Uncertainty Increase Attendance? A Non-Regression Approach," MPRA Paper 48571, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Bruce Morley & Dennis Thomas, 2007. "Attendance demand and core support: evidence from limited-overs cricket," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(16), pages 2085-2097.
    17. 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.
    18. Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez & Julio del Corral & R. Todd Jewell & Jorge García-Unanue & Cornel Nesseler, 2019. "A Prospective Analysis of Competitive Balance Levels in Major League Soccer," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 54(1), pages 175-190, February.
    19. Dennis Coates & Brad R. Humphreys & Li Zhou, 2014. "Reference-Dependent Preferences, Loss Aversion, And Live Game Attendance," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 52(3), pages 959-973, July.
    20. Adam Cox, 2018. "Spectator Demand, Uncertainty of Results, and Public Interest," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 19(1), pages 3-30, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Willingness-to-pay; Competitive balance; Uncertainty of outcome hypothesis; European Football;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • L83 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Services - - - Sports; Gambling; Restaurants; Recreation; Tourism

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:zbw:tuiedp:77. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: . General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ivtuide.html .

    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: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ivtuide.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.