Moving Towards Behavioral Stadium Attendance Demand Research : First Lessons Learned from Exploring Football Spectator No-Show Behavior in Europe

Stadium attendance demand research is firmly anchored in the literature on the economics of sports. In fact, we sports economists, in particular, have tested both Rottenberg’s (1956) original stadium attendance demand specification and its extensions extensively over the last few decades. While there exists a great interest in gradually expanding the boundaries of this important research stream by subsequently analyzing additional sports in previously unexplored markets, our field's response to the potential methodological challenges arising from the quasi-standard use of aggregated attendance data seems to be less dedicated. To address these potential methodological challenges, we, i.e., my co-authors and I, have slowly begun moving towards behavioral stadium attendance research by analyzing a distinct spectator decision in the past few years: football spectator no-show behavior. Summarizing our recent empirical research from exploring such behavior in Europe, in this book chapter, we reflect on what we have learned over the past few years and, perhaps more importantly, what we think should be addressed in future stadium attendance demand research