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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
RSS Feed