Submitted manuscript, 146 KB, PDF document
Research output: Working paper
Research output: Working paper
}
TY - UNPB
T1 - A tale of two audiences: spectators, television viewers and outcome uncertainty in Spanish football
AU - Buraimo, B
AU - Simmons, R
PY - 2007
Y1 - 2007
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
M3 - Working paper
T3 - Economics Working Paper Series
BT - A tale of two audiences: spectators, television viewers and outcome uncertainty in Spanish football
PB - The Department of Economics
CY - Lancaster University
ER -