Competitive balance and TV audience: An empirical analysis on the Italian Serie A

This paper investigates the behaviour of the “couch potato” audience in regards to the Italian Football League - Serie A - during the 2008/09 season. Using data from 380 matches, we considered a collection of variables suitable to influence the share of TV audience of satellite television. According to the standard prescriptions of sports economics literature and assessing peculiarities of Italian context, we estimated the “Football on TV’s” demand by an OLS regression model. Rating the dependent variable of TV audience by the share registered in each match, we introduced a set of independent variables in order to approximate match quality, the programme schedule placement, the follow-up of the involved teams and their rank. As other theoretical and empirical investigations have focused on Spanish and English championships, our attention concentrates particularly on the relationship between the closeness of the game and the television audience. In the regression model, uncertainty of outcome has been measured extracting information from the Italian fixed odds betting market. We found that all the theoretical expected relationships have been confirmed by the econometric analysis. In spite of the statistical significance of the outcome uncertainty on share, the estimation points out that more then 90% of variability concerning TV audience has been explained net of uncertainty factors and that the impact of a closest context on dependent variable is marginal. The overestimation of the role of match uncertainty on TV audience could support the opinion of top team’s management opposing the return to the collective bargaining of TV rights starting from next season, 2010/11, fixed by the law 9/2008 of Italian Parliament. In football context the competitive balance should then be considered a “meritorius good”, far from market assessment.

Win the best, win the largest or win the richest. Some empirical evidence from Italian championships

This paper uses an econometric model to evaluate the impact of variables influencing the long period competitive balance in Italian football league. Using records of the last 75 tournaments and adopting as a measure of market size both a demand and a supply side perspective, the paper aims at establishing if the theoretical prescriptions on the long run competitive balance holds for the Italian championships. This approach allows us to evaluate if teams outperform their market size and to extract a ranking of the best and worst teams in the last 75 years.

Football on TV: an empirical analysis on the italian "couch" potato attitudes

This paper investigates the relationship between Football and TV audience looking for empirical evidences from Italian Serie A. The analysis traces previous econometric study, based on season 2008/09, focusing on season 2009/10. Data on 380 matches played in the Italian top professional football league are collected in order to select variables suitable of influencing the share of TV audience on satellite television. We try to estimate the «Football on TV» demand by an OLS regression model introducing a set of independent variables about the match quality, the TV programming placement, the market size of teams and their rank. In addition, our attention concentrates on the relationship between the closeness of the game and the television audience, where uncertainty of outcome is modelled using information from the betting market. It emerges that many of the theoretical expected relationships are confirmed by the econometric analysis, even though some peculiarities emerge with respect to the uncertainty of outcome issue. In particular, closer contexts are important in determining the interest of sporting events, also from the Italian TV audience perspective, but they are not crucial.If the set of explanatory variables includes both the uncertainty of outcome and teams probabilities of winning, a negative relationship between the closeness of the match and TV audience emerges. This result suggests two possible explanations. First, the TV spectators behave just like stadium fans, and they are mainly interested in their own team victory. Second, the negative relationship may be attributed to the «David versus Goliath» hypothesis since neutral positioned fans watch matches on TV in the hope that little teams defeat top ranked teams. Finally, our empirical analysis confirms the decisive role of Inter, Juventus and Milan in determining the size of couch potato audience, supporting the idea of big teams' management that the competitive balance has not a great commercial appeal, and that the collective bargaining of TV rights must not be justified on this ground.En este trabajo se investiga sobre la relación entre el fútbol y las audiencias televisivas en búsqueda de evidencias empíricas de la Serie A italiana. El análisis esboza un estudio econométrico previo basado en la temporada 2008/09, y se centra en la temporada 2009/10. Se ha recabado información de 380 partidos jugados en la liga de fútbol profesional con el fin de seleccionar variables de influencia para determinar el share de la audiencia televisiva en televisión por satélite. Se ha intentado determinar la demanda de “fútbol en televisión” mediante un modelo de regresión OLS que introduce una serie de variables independientes que determinan la calidad del partido, del lugar que ocupe en la programación televisiva, el mercado que tenga cada uno de los equipos participantes y el lugar que ocupan dentro del ranking deportivo. Adicionalmente, nuestra atención se centra en la relación entre la cercanía del juego y la audiencia televisiva, en donde la falta de certeza sobre el resultado es sustituida por previsiones provenientes del mundo de las apuestas. De esta manera, muchas de las relaciones teóricas que se esperan son confirmadas por el análisis econométrico, aun cuando algunas peculiaridades surjan con respecto a la falta de certeza del resultado del evento. En particular, los contextos más cercanos son importantes para determinar el interés de los eventos deportivos, también desde una perspectiva de la audiencia italiana de televisión, aunque estos no sean en principio determinantes.Si el conjunto de las variables explicativas incluyen tanto la falta de certidumbre sobre el resultado final como las probabilidades del equipo de ganar, se da una relación negativa entre la proximidad del partido y las audiencias televisivas. Este resultado sugiere dos posibles explicaciones: En primer lugar, los televidentes se comportan como hinchas en el estadio, y están interesados básicamente en la victoria de su propio equipo. En segundo lugar, la relación negativa puede atribuirse a la hipótesis de “David contra Goliat”, ya que aquellos fans posicionados neutralmente ven los partidos en televisión con la esperanza de que los pequeños equipos venzan a los equipos mejor posicionados. Finalmente, nuestro análisis empírico confirma el rol decisivo de equipos como el Inter, la Juventus o el Milan a la hora de determinar el tamaño de la audiencia “coach potato”, apoyando la idea que sustenta la gestión de los grandes equipos en cuanto a que el equilibrio competitivo no tiene un gran atractivo comercial, y que la negociación colectiva de los derechos deportivos en televisión no debe justificarse en este supuesto

Why do underground reducing policies often fail their scope? Some answers from the Italian experience

Irregular labour input; enforcement; Fiscal Authority efficiency; regularization policy; incentives in the firm’s tax structure

MISURE ANTIVIOLENZA E PRESENZE ALLO STADIO: UNA INDAGINE EMPIRICA SULLA SERIE A

Introduzione – 1. La violenza nello sport: i diversi approcci – 2. Il calcio e la violenza in Italia: una breve sintesi storica – 3. Effetti delle misure antiviolenza sulle presenze allo stadio – 4. I risultati delle stime – 5. ConclusioniHooliganism, sport attendance, sport economics

Localizzazione geografica e performance sportiva: un’analisi empirica sul campionato di calcio di serie A

Introduzione – 1. Localizzazione geografica e risultati sportivi in Serie A – 2. Variabili economiche e performance sportiva – 3. La performance sportiva attraverso gli scontri diretti: una analisi econometrica – Conclusioni – Appendice – Bibliografia

Competitività orizzontale e verticale nel ciclismo professionistico: alcune riflessioni sul circuito pro tour

1. La recente evoluzione delle forme organizzative del ciclismo professionistico - 2. Il Pro Tour: aspetti organizzativi, strategie ed obiettivi della lega chiusa - 3. Competitività verticale e orizzontale all’interno del Pro Tour: alcune evidenze - ConclusioniCompetitività verticale e orizzontale, pro tour, economia del ciclismo