Factors That Affect Attendance At Professional Sporting Events
It is generally believed that successful results convert into increased attendance figures. Although this assumption is proven to be true in major league sports in America, effect of winning percentage in minor league baseball on attendance was somewhat different. In Class AAA level which is the highest level of minor league baseball no effect of winning percentage on attendance had been found whereas Class A and AA which are leagues below Class AAA, winning percentage was found to be reliable predictor of determining game attendance.
Poor attendance may be attributed to poor performance on field and sports club managers tend to consider successful playing record as paramount factor to increase attendance and guarantee a full stadium.
However, Marcum & Greenstein (1981) explained that team performance is accounted for only 25% of the fluctuation in number of spectators in the stands. Furthermore, many teams in the middle of the league’s table showed excellence performance in terms of attendance rate almost singularly due to well-planned and creative marketing efforts.
In professional European football league, highly committed fans and their clubs are strongly bound to each other and this connection becomes even stronger after relegation which implies that certain segment of spectators are not affected greatly by the performance or win-loss factor. Certain factors like win-loss record, current performance of the team are not controllable factors by sport mangers but promotions, building up an atmosphere of rivalry games through media special events can be controlled and improved to attract more spectators to games
Economic factors
In the economic category, various authors have examined the availability of other forms of entertainment, ticket price, the impact of sports television coverage, the impact of alternative sport attractions in the same market and per capita income. The existence of alternative forms of entertainment, the availability of multiple sport attractions and increases in the price of tickets and television effect were found to be negatively related with spectator game attendance. In terms of the remaining variables, per capita income and higher income were found to be positively related with game attendance.
Although the price of ticket was identified as a considerable barrier in attending more matches for the entertainment seeking segments it is found to be largely irrelevant for many sports fans with greater attachment to their teams. Several researchers have suggested that alternative leisure activities compete for spectators’ attendance.
Stolar (1989) underlined the importance of competitor identification. Without identifying potential 10competitors, coming up with successful marketing strategies that maximize its competence and market potentials is not possible.
Zhang & Smith (1997) examined the influence of TV and radio broadcasting on attendance at NBA games. The results revealed that televised home games decreased attendance but broadcasting away games increased attendance. The findings were consistent with previous researches, in that broadcasting of home games negatively affects attendance. The fact that spectators, who watched more away games on TV visited home games frequently, could be explained by the additional opportunity given to increase their interest for the team’s games, which was achieved by broadcasting system.
Due to the fact that broadcasting took fans away from the stadiums, between 1992 and 2001 English premier league clubs sold only 60 of 380 matches in each the season. Additionally, in major league baseball, each additional televised game was found to reduce in person attendance by four thousand. However, Allan and Roy (2008) criticized the aforementioned studies for lack of data about which segment of spectators are affected by broadcasted games. They found that the fluctuation in stadium attendance is caused by fans who buy tickets on the day of the match. Fans who are season ticketholder are not influenced. Garcia and Rodriguez (2002) supported this result with their study, which found that in first tier in Spain, broadcasting had a statistically significant negative effect on non-season ticket holders between 1992 and 1996.Buraimo et al 2009, added valuable information regarding channels in which broadcasted games are shown, saying that fans’ attendance decreases to a lesser extent when football match is aired on a subscribed TV sports channel. When the football match is broadcasted on a free of charge TV channels the decrease is much more significant. This means the televising of football matches does influence fans’ attendance and the impact is much greater when its aired in free TV. Although the advent of TV is considered as factor which negatively influences the fans attendance at the stadium, this platform can be used as medium to advertise their matches to fans.
Socio-demographic
Socio-demographic category is comprised of factors like population size of area, ethnic population and geography. Population size has a positive effect on attendance, however presence of great numbers and sizes of ethnic groups in the populations may have a negative effect on attendance.
Although socio-demographic factors are not controllable by sport managers and are unlikely to reflect sport consumer behavior patterns, it still is an important category of factors that could to be valuable for market segmentation.
Residual preference
Residual preference, deals with scheduling of games, fan accommodation, stadium quality, stadium safety, service quality, security, cleanliness accessibility to stadiums, availability of car parking, weather conditions and so forth. In terms of scheduling, Kuypers (1996) suggested that schedule of the match day could negatively affect spectators’ attendance. Weekend games, evening games and end of season games were found to increase attendance, whereas afternoon games decreased attendance. Buraimo et al (2010) also found that football matches held on weekends enhanced number of people in the stands on weekends.
Weather conditions can have both positive and negative impact on attendance. Unfavorable weather conditions may prevent spectators from watching the game in person, but this does not necessarily mean that favorable weather conditions always have positive impact on spectators’ attendance as potential spectators have other alternative leisure activity options. The service providers cannot do something about it directly. However, they can create conditions on the sport scape to make people believe that they will not suffer from bad weather conditions.
Sports venue has been identified as a factor, that significantly affect stadium attendance. New facilities such as brand-new stadium was found to be positively related to game attendance. In major league baseball in America, when new stadiums were built in the recent years the number of people in the stands has increased by 18% up to 45%. stadium factors can enhance spectators’ intention to revisit the stadium whereas poor soccer stadium factors may play a significant role on fans’ dissatisfaction and decrease their attendance.
The sport scape is defined as the physical environment of the stadium and it is comprised of interior and the exterior fixed elements, and the non-fixed elements. The interior fixed elements of the sport scape include general comfort, aesthetics, scoreboard quality, seating comfort, and layout accessibility such as space allocation and signage. The exterior fixed elements of the sport scape include parking, accessibility, outdoors aesthetics and location. The non-fixed elements include service quality, stadium security and safety and time to get to the stadium. In Greece, Stadium security was the factor with the strongest relationship with spectators’ satisfaction. This finding is in agreement with the results of Correia & Exteves (2007), which stated that football spectators will be satisfied only when there are stadium’s facilities, car park and stadium’s safety. Additionally, staff and quick easy access, have found to be the most important dimensions for spectators’ satisfaction in a study in Greek Soccer super league. Majority of factors in this category are amenable factors and sport marketers and personnel from the league or club can improve the conditions mentioned above to enhance attendance rate in stadiums.
Conclusion
Multitude of factors that affect attendance at professional sporting events have been identified and classified into 4 categories: game attractiveness, economics, socio-demographic and residual preference.
Researches show that game attractiveness factors and audience preference are positively related to game attendance. Among economic variables, higher income and per capita income have consistently been found to be positively related to game attendance, while ticket price, substitute forms of entertainment, television effect and competition with other sport events have been found to be negatively related to game attendance. In terms of socio-demographic factor, community size was positively related to game attendance. Such findings are valuable information for sport administrators. Teams and leagues that need to improve numbers in attendance should invest and concentrate their efforts on factors they can control rather than on things they cannot control and this in turn will yield substantial benefits for these organizations and their fans. Along with profound insight of who the spectators are, knowing which clusters of spectators and fans exist, and by which factors they are affected on their decision to attend the games, employees of K-league should develop marketing strategies appropriate for K-league industry. As mentioned numerous times throughout the essay, spectator attendance is crucial element of any professional sport leagues as they bring additional revenues to clubs in forms of sponsorship deals, broadcasting rights, merchandising and so on, which all contribute to financial status and secure continuance of existence of clubs and leagues.
