The Economics of Sport
  • Sports Economics
  • About
  • Workshop
  • Media
  • Selected Publications
  • Book Reviews
  • A Primer on Gaelic Games
  • Upcoming Events
  • Education
  • Resources & Links
  • Data

Senior Irish Football International Attendances – Part 2

1/5/2015

 
By Seán O'Connor

Previously I wrote a piece which focused on the economic conditions, both unemployment and income (in the form of GDP per capita) and their roles in influencing Irish international attendances (here). While limited evidence was found in both variables playing an influence, particularly in the case of GDP per capita, what about other factors such as, how Ireland are performing, the level of the opposition, and the unpredictability of the outcome? Figures 1, 2, and 3 examine these variables.

In order to assess how well Ireland or the opposition are playing at the particular moment in time, the FIFA World Rankings are used. In theory, the lower the ranking the better the team is, thus the higher the expected attendance.
Picture
Figure 1 highlights a weak negative relationship indicating, the worse Ireland is ranked by FIFA the less likely people are to attend a game. However, as this relationship is weak, it would point to the fact that only half the story is being told. Are people more influenced to attend internationals given the proposition of a big team coming town? Figure 2 illustrates the same measure, but for opposition ranking rather than Irish.
Picture
Interestingly, although the R2 value is low, it is higher than that seen in Figure 1. This presents some tepid evidence that when it comes to peoples decisions to attend an international match  it is of more importance of who the opposition is rather than how Ireland are doing. Better international away teams attract bigger home crowds.

Finally, match uncertainty plays a role in attracting greater crowds to games as was discussed by Garcia and Rodriguez (2015). While their study uses a quadratic form of the difference between home and away teams in the league as one measure of match uncertainty, I use the squared difference in FIFA rankings between Ireland and their opponent. Lower values indicate the teams are more closely matched while higher values indicate a gulf in class between the two. Figure 3 indicates the correlation.
Picture
Above points to a positive correlation which is slightly puzzling. This would indicate that attendance increase the less uncertain the result. One reason for this is that this measure captures times when Ireland play very high ranked teams, such as Brazil, Argentina, Germany etc. As Figure 2 pointed out higher ranked opposition teams resulted in greater attendances so perhaps this provides further evidence to indicate football fans in Ireland are more interested in watching the opposition than going to see a close game. Another potential reason may be that less uncertain games could act as a signal to fans that there could be a greater probability of more goals being scored, thus more entertainment (given if you measure entertainment as the amount of goals in a game).

If we were to rank the factors influencing Irish International attendance over the period according to their R2 results, unemployment levels, and opposition ranking would be the most important, followed by Irish rankings, with match uncertainty and GDP per capita levels being the least.

However, in truth no one particular variable can explain fully the factors which influence Irish football attendances. There are combinations of all the above, plus others, such as ticket prices, competitive games vs friendlies, weather factors. More research is needed but the starting point for this is to have accurate and reliable attendance figures.

Seán O'Connor is a Research Assistant at the Department of Economics, University College Cork.

Comments are closed.

    Archives

    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013

    About

    This website was founded in July 2013.

    RSS Feed

    Categories

    All
    American Football
    Athletics
    Baseball
    Basketball
    Behavioural Economics
    Boxing
    Broadcasting
    Competitive Balance
    Cricket
    Cycling
    Darts
    David Butler
    Declan Jordan
    Drugs
    Ed Valentine
    Epl
    Esports
    Expenditure
    F1
    Fifa World Cup
    Finances
    Funding
    Gaa
    Gaelic Games
    Gambling
    Game Theory
    Gary Burns
    Geography
    Golf
    Greyhound Racing
    Guest Posts
    Horse Racing
    Impact Studies
    John Considine
    John Eakins
    League Of Ireland
    Location
    Media
    Mls
    Mma
    Olympics
    Participation
    Paul O'Sullivan
    Premier League
    Regulation
    Research
    Robbie Butler
    Rugby
    Simpsonomics
    Snooker
    Soccer
    Spatial Analysis
    Sporting Bodies
    Stephen Brosnan
    Swimming
    Taxation
    Teaching
    Technology
    Tennis
    Transfers
    Uefa
    Ufc
    World Cup
    Wwe

Related

The website is not formally affiliated to any institution and all of the entries represent the personal views and opinions of an individual contributor. The website operates on a not-for-profit basis. For this reason we decline all advertisement opportunities. 

Contact

To contact us email sportseconomics2013@gmail.com or find us on Twitter @SportEcon.