Generally there are numerous reasons why sport clubs are
interested in selling tickets and thus in high attendance figures. The purpose
of this short treatise is to identify the three main and probably most important
generic reasons why a sufficient live attendance is crucial for every sports
club.
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| ALBA Berlin has the highest average attendance in European Basketball |
The first reason goes back to the fact that
ticketing is one major source of direct revenues for most professional sport
clubs (Chadwick & Beech 2007: 5; Howard & Crompton 2004: 87; Clowes & Clements 2003). During the season
2012/13 the participating clubs of the Beko BBL generated a total revenue of
86,6€ million. The second biggest amount of 19,8€ million (17,15%) was
generated through ticket sales (Deloitte 2013: 9). Only the revenues from
sponsorships reached a higher value for the clubs. In addition spectators are
responsible for associated revenues through for instance merchandise purchases
(Howard & Crompton 2004: 88). The mentioned revenue figure underpins the
importance of ticket sales for professional sport clubs out of the financial
perspective. The specific service characteristic of perishability reinforces
this perception additionally. Related to this, Burton (1998) stresses the
importance of avoiding unsold seats wherever possible because unsold tickets
lose their value during the event and equal therefore lost potential revenues
(Palmer 2008: 460). The fact that in case of most sports clubs the amount of sold
tickets does not significantly influence the variable costs of hosting a home
games even supports this perceptions.
The second reason why sport clubs are
interested in selling tickets is based on the impact a large and engaged
attendance has upon the on-pitch processes. This effect is discussed in
profound literature, mainly referring to the work of Courneya & Carron
(1991) who introduced the term ‘home advantage’ in order to describe how home
teams benefit from the support of their fans. Comprehensive research around
this term identified the impact the crowd has upon the officials (i.e. referees
and judges) (Nevill et al. 2002; Dohmen 2008; Agnew & Carron 1994) as well
as upon the players (Thirer & Rampey 1997). Basically it could be
summarised that “teams perform better and win more games when they receive more
enthusiastic crowd support” (Zeller & Jurkovac 1988: 20). This effect was
ascertained in several North American team sport leagues, including Baseball
(Adams & Kupper 1994), Ice Hockey (Agnew & Carron 1994), Basketball
(Varca 1980) and American Football (Nevill et al. 1996).
The third reason why sport clubs are
interested in ticketing is directly related to the marketing tool of sport
sponsorships. Nowadays an increasing number of enterprises use sport
sponsorships as a communication tool and an alternative to traditional
advertising measures (Schwarz & Hunter 2008: 244; Lagae 2005: 43). Common
criterions, when it comes to evaluating potential sponsees, are spectator
figures, whereby there is a distinction between direct spectators, which are
actually at the ground, and indirect spectators, which follow the event live or
time-displaced through the media (Mullin et al. 2007: 318-324; Blakey 2011: 114/115).
Whereas there is a lot research about sponsoring major sport events and sport
clubs with a comprehensive media coverage (Amis et al. 1999; Quester &
Farrelly 1998), only a few considerations have been made about the objectives
pursued by companies engaged in sponsorships with clubs and events with a
negligible media interest (Greenhalgh & Greenwell 2013). However,
Greenhalgh & Greenwell (2013) argue that some particular sponsorship
objectives, like for instance involvement within a community and enhancement of
employee relations, could be also or even more effective pursued through
engaging in partnerships with clubs having this marginal media interest.
Additionally Stotlar (2009) writes that these clubs often attract more
demographic and especially psychographic homogeneous fans, what could be again
expedient for sponsors with corresponding objectives. As stated before were
sponsorship deals the most important source of revenue (52,1%) for Beko BBL
clubs during the season 2012/13 (Deloitte 2013: 9). Because the media coverage
of German basketball is generally meagre (Hebben 2011) (beside some particular salient
clubs like the FC Bayern Munich or the Brose Baskets Bamberg) and many club did
not appear on television screens more than twice the 2013/14 season, it could
be assumed that sponsors are principally interested in reaching direct on-site
rather than indirect media spectators. High attendance figures could be
therefore beneficial when it comes to (re-) negotiating sponsorship deals.
The three identified reasons underline the
importance of on-site spectators for every sport club, regardless of whether
with or without a high public interest and media coverage or fully professional
structures. This circumstance should be considered by officials when operating
areas like ticketing, customer service or fan relation. In my opinion many of nowadays
clubs have a focus shifted too much onto serving and satisfying business
stakeholders beside the actual fans and supporters.
