IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rdg/emxxdp/em-dp2022-11.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Separating the crowds: Examining home and away attendances at football matches

Author

Listed:
  • Brad Humphreys

    (Department of Economics, College of Business and Economics, West Virginia University)

  • J. James Reade

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

  • Dominik Schreyer

    (Wissenschaftliche Hochschule für Unternehmensführung (WHU))

  • Carl Singleton

    (Department of Economics, University of Reading)

Abstract

The number of people consuming sporting events has long interested economists. Although imperfect, it is a measure of the demand for a ‘peculiar’ type of good or service — the sporting event. It also provides some measure of the social pressure on individuals performing. That pressure can be supportive, but it can also contribute to negative outcomes like choking on the part of performers. The extent to which a crowd is supportive or otherwise, however, is not always clear. In this paper we introduce a novel dataset detailing reported numbers of away fans at matches in England over recent years. We spend time characterising the dataset, and considering potential uses for it. We find evidence suggestive of different preferences for home and away fans; public holidays are a much stronger driver for away fan attendance, as is a team’s league position. For away fans, whether or not the team remains in contention for end-of-season prizes matters much more than for home fans, and away fans are attracted by the novelty of a fixture more than home fans. We find some evidence that the expected number of away fans may have a small impact on match outcomes.

Suggested Citation

  • Brad Humphreys & J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer & Carl Singleton, 2022. "Separating the crowds: Examining home and away attendances at football matches," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2022-11, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    • Handle: RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2022-11
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://research.reading.ac.uk/economics/wp-content/uploads/sites/87/2022/11/emdp202211.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jeffery Borland, 2003. "Demand for Sport," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 19(4), pages 478-502, Winter.
    2. Bryson, Alex & Dolton, Peter & Reade, J. James & Schreyer, Dominik & Singleton, Carl, 2021. "Causal effects of an absent crowd on performances and refereeing decisions during Covid-19," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    3. Vincenzo Alfano, 2022. "COVID-19 Diffusion Before Awareness: The Role of Football Match Attendance in Italy," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 23(5), pages 503-523, June.
    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. Carl Singleton & J. James Reade & Dominik Schreyer, 2023. "A decade of violence and empty stadiums in Egypt: when does emotion from the terraces affect behaviour on the pitch?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 65(3), pages 1487-1507, September.

    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. J. James Reade, 2023. "Large Sporting Events and Public Health and Safety," Economics Discussion Papers em-dp2023-04, Department of Economics, University of Reading.
    2. Hiroaki Funahashi & Shintaro Sato & Takuya Furukawa, 2022. "COVID-19 and Attendance Demand for Professional Sport in Japan: A Multilevel Analysis of Repeated Cross-Sectional National Data during the Pandemic," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-10, April.
    3. Paul Bose & Eberhard Feess & Helge Mueller, 2022. "Favoritism towards High-Status Clubs: Evidence from German Soccer," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 38(2), pages 422-478.
    4. Jianglong Li & Shiqiang Sun & Mun Sing Ho, 2024. "Immediate Impacts of Air Pollution on the Performance of Football Players," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 25(6), pages 753-776, August.
    5. Jason A. Winfree, 2021. "If You Don'T Like The Outcome, Change The Contest," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(1), pages 329-343, January.
    6. Mauro Caselli & Paolo Falco, 2021. "When the Mob Goes Silent: Uncovering the Effects of Racial Harassment through a Natural Experiment," DEM Working Papers 2021/01, Department of Economics and Management.
    7. Breuer, Christoph & Boronczyk, Felix & Rumpf, Christopher, 2021. "Message personalization and real-time adaptation as next innovations in sport sponsorship management? How run-of-play and team affiliation affect viewer response," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 309-316.
    8. Young Hoon Lee & Jigyu Chung & Joonho Kang, 2012. "Ex Ante and Ex Post Expectation of Outcome Uncertainty and Television Viewership of a Baseball Game," Working Papers 1206, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    9. Ian Gregory‐Smith, 2021. "Wages And Labor Productivity: Evidence From Injuries In The National Football League," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 59(2), pages 829-847, April.
    10. Sung Il Hong & Michael Mondello & Dennis Coates, 2011. "An Examination of the Effects of the Recent Economic Crisis on Major League Baseball (MLB) Attendance Demand," Working Papers 1123, International Association of Sports Economists;North American Association of Sports Economists.
    11. Luke S. Benz & Michael J. Lopez, 2023. "Estimating the change in soccer’s home advantage during the Covid-19 pandemic using bivariate Poisson regression," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 107(1), pages 205-232, March.
    12. Jean-Marc Bourgeon & José de Sousa & Alexis Noir-Luhalwe, 2022. "Social Distancing and Risk Taking: Evidence from a Team Game Show [Distanciation sociale et prise de risque : Les résultats d'un jeu d'équipe]," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03792423, HAL.
    13. Alfano, Vincenzo, 2024. "Unlocking the importance of perceived governance: The impact on COVID-19 in NUTS-2 European regions," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 343(C).
    14. Thorsten Schank & Vivien Voigt & Christian Orthey, 2024. "During and after COVID-19: What happened to the home advantage in Germany's first football division?," Papers 2411.12509, arXiv.org.
    15. Lief Brandes & Egon Franck, 2007. "Who Made Who – An Empirical Analysis of Competitive Balance in European Soccer Leagues," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 33(3), pages 379-403, Summer.
    16. Coates, Dennis & Humphreys, Brad, 2011. "Game Attendance and Competitive Balance in the National Hockey League," Working Papers 2011-8, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    17. Butler, David & Butler, Robert & Farnell, Alex & Simmons, Robert, 2024. "COVID-19 infections and short-run worker performance: Evidence from European football," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 315(2), pages 750-763.
    18. 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.
    19. Colella, F. & Dalton, Patricio & Giusti, G., 2021. "All you Need is Love : The Effect of Moral Support on Performance (Revision of CentER DP 2018-026)," Discussion Paper 2021-005, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    20. Pawlowski, Tim & Downward, Paul & Rasciute, Simona, 2014. "Does national pride from international sporting success contribute to well-being? An international investigation," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(2), pages 121-132.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Sport; home advantage; attendance; demand;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Z2 - Other Special Topics - - Sports Economics
    • R42 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - Transportation Economics - - - Government and Private Investment Analysis; Road Maintenance; Transportation Planning
    • D91 - Microeconomics - - Micro-Based Behavioral Economics - - - Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making

    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:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2022-11. 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: Alexander Mihailov (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/derdguk.html .

    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.