Market size and attendance in English Premier League football

This paper models the impacts of market size and team competition for fan base on matchday attendance in the English Premier League over the period 1997-2004 using a large panel data set. We construct a comprehensive set of control variables and use tobit estimation to overcome the problems caused by sell-out crowds. We also account for unobserved influences on attendance by means of random effects attached to home teams. Our treatment of market size, with its use of Geographical Information System techniques, is more sophisticated than in previous attendance demand studies.

A tale of two audiences: spectators, television viewers and outcome uncertainty in Spanish football

This paper tests for the impact of match outcome uncertainty on two types of audience for Spanish football, fans at the stadium and television viewers. We find that fans inside the stadium prefer games that are less and not more likely to finish with a close score. This is contrary to much theoretical literature in sports economics which argues that fans prefer close contests and imposes this assumption in formal modelling. We also find that television viewers prefer close contests to more predictable contests. The different preferences of fans inside the stadium and television viewers need to be reconciled by the league when considering the effectiveness of policies to redistribute resources amongst teams in the league. We use our empirical model to consider how this tension might be resolved so as to maximise total audience and total league revenues.

Freedom of entry, market size and competitive outcome: evidence from English soccer

The paper tests, in the context of an open sports league, whether greater success is achieved by clubs in markets with larger populations. The relationship is strong but, to a limited extent, mitigated by more clubs establishing in large markets.

Robust estimates of the impact of broadcasting on match attendance in football

The paper employs data from 2,884 matches, of which 158 were televised, in the second tier of English football (currently known as The Football League Championship). It builds a model of the determinants of attendance that is designed to yield estimates of the proportionate changes in the size of crowds resulting from games being shown on either free-to-air or subscription based channels. The model has two innovatory features. First, it controls for the market size of home and away teams very precisely by including local population measures constructed from the application of GIS software and information on competition from other clubs. Second, it employs the Hausman-Taylor random effects estimator in order to take explicit account of the endogeneity of the television coverage variable and of other variables typically included in earlier studies based on ordinary least squares or fixed effects models of attendance. The Hausman-Taylor estimates of the impact of broadcasting are greater than those reported in such studies. In the case of free-to-air television, the negative impact is estimated as over 20 percent but for subscription television, which carried most of the transmissions, the negative effect was only of the order of 5 percent

Outcome uncertainty and the couch potato audience

Previous studies of attendance demand for professional team sports have failed to yield clear- cut findings on the importance of outcome uncertainty to consumers. But potentially fewer problems should arise in examining the link between outcome uncertainty and demand in the television market for team sports, which in the case of English Premier League football is in fact a more important component in total club revenue. This study models both the choice of which games to show and the size of audience attracted by each game, exploiting data on audience sizes for games between 1993 and 2002. We propose a new measure of match outcome uncertainty and, from our results, both the broadcaster and the audience appear interested in competitive balance.

Do Salaries Improve Worker Performance?

We establish the effects of salaries on worker performance by exploiting a natural experiment in which some workers in a particular occupation (football referees) switch from short-term contracts to salaried contracts. Worker performance improves among those who move onto salaried contracts relative to those who do not. The finding is robust to the introduction of worker fixed effects indicating that it is not driven by better workers being awarded salary contracts. Nor is it sensitive to workers sorting into or out of the profession. Improved performance could arise from the additional effort workers exert due to career concerns, the higher income associated with career contracts (an efficiency wage effect) or improvements in worker quality arising from off-the-job training which accompanies the salaried contracts.

UEFA Champions League revenues, performance and participation 2003-04 to 2016-17

The UEFA Champions League revenues continue to grow (€1.3bn in 2016-17), although previous studies have highlighted a competitive imbalance in the competition, and in the leagues supplying teams. UEFA plans to increase the allocation of automatic qualifying places to 16 for the top four ranked leagues for 2018-19, and alter the financial distribution model. This paper analyses the representation, performance and revenue distribution by club and UEFA member associations from 2003-04 to 2016-17 with reference to the quota changes and future direction. UEFAs priorities are split, between meeting their core principles of governing 55 member nations, and commercial expectations from leading clubs. The findings demonstrate that the current structure offers clubs from England, Germany, Italy and Spain the most representation, revenue, and their clubs have the strongest performance. The financial benefits of this enhanced access are vast. These clubs received €6.61bn (61%) of all revenue, with sixteen clubs receiving €5.6bn (52%) overall. The market pool element of the distribution model is where the most differences lie, calculated by UEFA. Discussions include the benefits and issues with the quota changes around representation, revenue and performance, with reference to UEFAs aim to offer "fair competition" and "fair distribution" in the future

Time to Go? Head Coach Quits and Dismissals in Professional Football

Using nationally representative workplace data for Britain we identify the partial correlation between workplace wages and the percentage of migrants employed at a workplace. We find wages are lower in workplaces employing a higher percentage of migrants, but only when those migrants are non-EEA migrants. However, the effects are no longer apparent when we condition on the ethnic complexion of employees at the workplace. Instead, the wage penalty is attached to the percentage of non-white employees, a finding that is consistent with employer discrimination on grounds of race, or lower worker bargaining power when employees are ethnically diverse

Time To Go? Head Coach Quits and Dismissals in Professional Football

That football Head Coaches will be dismissed for poor performance and will quit when they have better outside options seems obvious. But owners may find it hard to distinguish poor performance from bad luck and may find it difficult to identify and attract talented Head Coaches from other clubs even if their current Head Coach is performing below expectations. Equally, Head Coaches may have few options to move to better clubs even when they are performing well. Using rich data on Head Coach characteristics we identify determinants of quits and dismissals across four professional football leagues over the period 2002–2015. We find that Head Coaches’ probabilities of dismissal are significantly lower when the team is performing above expectations, with the effect strongest for recent games. However, in contrast to earlier studies, we find that performing above expectations also reduces the probability of Head Coach quits. Head Coach success in the past, as well as Head Coach experience, reduce the probability of being dismissed, even when conditioning on team performance, suggesting Head Coach human capital has some ‘protective’ effect in managerial careers. Past experience has little effect on quit probabilities—with the exception of tenure at the current employer, which is associated with lower quit rates. We test the robustness of our results by confining estimates to first exits, within-season departures and by dealing with unobserved Head Coach heterogeneity

Parachute payments in English football: Softening the landing or distorting the balance?

This paper examines the impact of parachute payments in English league football in relation to the competitive balance of the second tier (the Championship). League results and parachute payment fees data were collected for the 11 seasons between 2006/07 and 2016/17. Overall competitive balance was analysed as well as specific aspects of competition that are fundamental to the league - promotion, survival and relegation. Our results show that an increase in the number of clubs with parachute payments and the overall value of these payments coincides with a reduction in competitive balance in the Championship. Furthermore, clubs with parachute payments are twice as likely to be promoted to the English Premier League and considerably less likely to suffer further relegation to the third tier (League 1). The paper therefore proposes either a re-distribution of parachute payments, the abolition of them completely, or a handicap points system to improve competitive balance