The Impact of Hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup on Differences in TV Viewership Between Seasoned Football Fans and Occasional Watchers of Football Games in Russia
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online April, 2020
The Impact of Hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup on Differences in TV Viewership Between Seasoned Football Fans and Occasional Watchers of Football Games in Russia
This article explores Russian TV viewership for football games at seven international football tournaments from 2006 to 2018. The research goal is 2-fold. First, we identify the determinants of Russian viewership for football mega-events. We focus on patriotism effects, and we check for any hosting impact of the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Second, we analyze how these determinants differ in explaining two distinct TV metrics: Audience Size and Reach. Results indicate that the metrics are partially driven by different determinants which can be linked to two types of viewers: seasoned football fans and occasional watchers of football games.
AlavyK.GaskellA.LeachS.SzymanskiS. (2010). On the edge of your seat: Demand for football on television and the uncertainty of outcome hypothesis. International Journal of Sport Finance, 5, 75–95.
2.
AlmJ.SolbergH. A.StormR. K.JakobsenT. G. (2016). Hosting major sports events: The challenge of taming white elephants. Leisure Studies, 35, 564–582.
3.
ArteroI.BandrésE. (2018). The broadcasting demand for the Spanish national soccer team. Journal of Sports Economics, 19, 934–959.
4.
BaidinaK.ParshakovP. (2017). Uncertainty of outcome and attendance: Evidence from Russian football. Unpublished manuscript. Perm, Russian Federation.
5.
British Broadcasting Corporation. (2015). Premier League in record £5.14bn TV rights deal. Retrieved December 18, 2017, fromhttp://www.bbc.com/news/business-31379128
6.
BuraimoB. (2008). Stadium attendance and television audience demand in English League football. Managerial and Decision Economics, 29, 513–523.
7.
BuraimoB.SimmonsR. (2009). A tale of two audiences: Spectators, television viewers and outcome uncertainty in Spanish football. Journal of Economics and Business, 61, 326–338.
8.
BuraimoB.SimmonsR. (2015). Uncertainty of outcome or star quality? Television audience demand for English Premier League Football. International Journal of the Economics of Business, 22, 449–469.
9.
ButlerR.MasseyP. (2019). Has competition in the market for subscription sports broadcasting benefited consumers? The case of the English Premier League. Journal of Sports Economics, 20, 603–624.
10.
CarusoR.AddesaF.Di DomizioM. (2019). The determinants of the TV demand for soccer: Empirical evidence on Italian Serie A for the period 2008-2015. Journal of Sports Economics, 20, 25–49.
11.
CoatesD.NaidenovaI.ParshakovP. (2017). Determinants of Russian football club brands. International Journal of Sport Finance, 12, 321–341.
12.
CoxA. (2018). Spectator demand, uncertainty of results, and public interest: Evidence from the English Premier League. Journal of Sports Economics, 19, 3–30.
13.
DrummondR.CronjeJ. (2019). Building a white elephant? The case of the Cape Town Stadium. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, 11, 57–78.
14.
FeddersenA.RottA. (2011). Determinants of demand for televised live football: Features of the German national football team. Journal of Sports Economics, 12, 352–369.
15.
FeuilletA.ScellesN.DurandC. (2019). A winner’s curse in the bidding process for broadcasting rights in football? The cases of the French and UK markets. Sport in Society, 22, 1198–1224.
16.
ForrestD.SimmonsR.BuraimoB. (2005). Outcome uncertainty and the couch potato audience. Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 52, 641–661.
17.
HayesA. F.CaiL. (2007). Using heteroskedasticity-consistent standard error estimators in OLS regression: An introduction and software implementation. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 709–722.
18.
HowardD. R.CromptonJ. L. (2003). An empirical review of the stadium novelty effect. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 12, 111–116.
19.
JohnsenH.SolvollM. (2007). The demand for televised football. European Sport Management Quarterly, 7, 311–335.
20.
KimN.KimY. (2012). Predicting TV audience of international sporting events in Korea: The case of 2006 FIFA World Cup. Journal of Economic Research, 17, 77–88.
21.
LasekJ.SzlávikZ.BhulaiS. (2013). The predictive power of ranking systems in association football. International Journal of Applied Pattern Recognition, 1, 27–46.
MeierH.KonjerM. (2015). Is there a premium for beauty in sport consumption? Evidence from German TV ratings for tennis matches. European Journal for Sport and Society, 12, 309–340.
24.
MutzM.WahnschaffeK. (2016). The television viewer’s quest for excitement—Does the course of a soccer game affect TV ratings?European Journal for Sport and Society, 13, 325–341.
25.
NüeschS.FranckE. (2009). The role of patriotism in explaining the TV audience of national team games—Evidence from four international tournaments. Journal of Media Economics, 22, 6–19.
26.
PérezL.PuenteV.RodriguezP. (2017). Factors determining TV soccer viewing: Does uncertainty of outcome really matter. International Journal of Sport Finance, 12, 124–139.
27.
RottenbergS. (1956). The baseball players’ labor market. Journal of Political Economy, 64, 242–258.
28.
Russian Center of Monitoring Public Opinion. (2015). Crisis in Russian football: Results of 2014-2015. Retrieved December 10, 2017, fromhttps://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=115311
ScellesN. (2017). Star quality and competitive balance? Television audience demand for English Premier League football reconsidered. Applied Economics Letters, 24, 1399–1402.
31.
ScellesN.DurandC.BahS. T.RioultF. (2011). Intra-match competitive intensity in French football Ligue 1 and rugby Top 14. International Journal of Sport Management and Marketing, 9, 154–169.
32.
SchreyerD.SchmidtS.TorglerB. (2017). Game outcome uncertainty and the demand for international football games: Evidence from the German TV market. Journal of Media Economics, 30, 31–45.
33.
SchreyerD.TorglerB. (2018). On the role of race outcome uncertainty in the TV demand for Formula 1 Grands Prix. Journal of Sports Economics, 19, 211–229.
Van ReethD. (2013). TV demand for the Tour de France: The importance of stage characteristics versus outcome uncertainty, patriotism, and doping. International Journal of Sport Finance, 8, 39–60.
36.
Van ReethD. (2015). TV viewing of road cycling races. In Van ReethD.LarsonD. (Eds.), The economics of professional road cycling (pp. 99–128). London, England: Springer.
37.
Van ReethD. (2019). Methodological pitfalls in analysing TV audiences for live sports broadcasts. Unpublished manuscript. Brussels, Belgium.
38.
WangC.GoossensD.VandebroekM. (2018). The impact of soccer schedule on TV viewership and stadium attendance: Evidence from the Belgian Pro League. Journal of Sports Economics, 19, 82–112.
