Insights for clubs from modelling match attendance in football

Buraimo, B; Forrest, DK; Simmons, R

Abstract

The paper employs data from 2884 matches in the English Football League Championship. It builds a model of
determinants of attendance designed to yield results relevant to decision-taking at individual clubs. The model
has two innovatory features. It controls for the market size of home and away teams precisely by including
local population measures constructed from the application of GIS software and information on competition
from other clubs. It incorporates these time-invariant covariates in a Hausman–Taylor random effects estimator
to take explicit account of variables typically excluded in earlier studies based on fixed effects models. Unlike
fixed effects results, Hausman–Taylor estimates permit assessment of the role of market size and quality of
the playing squad in determining attendance. Results also quantify the reduction in attendance from televising
a match and show that attendance diminishes when a match is played simultaneously with a televised game
in a higher status competition.

Citation

Buraimo, B., Forrest, D., & Simmons, R. (2009). Insights for clubs from modelling match attendance in football. Journal of the Operational Research Society, 60(2), 147-155. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602549

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2009
• Deposit Date: Dec 12, 2011
• Journal: Journal of the Operational Research Society
• Print ISSN: 0160-5682
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 60
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 147-155
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602549
• Publisher URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2602549