The Group Size and Loyalty of Football Fans: A Two-Stage Estimation Procedure to Compare Customer Potential Across Teams

This paper presents estimation results on the size and loyalty of sport teamsÕ sup- porter groups in professional German football. Based on a novel two-stage estimation procedure, we find clear evidence for heterogeneity across teams. In a first stage, a random utility model for a representative consumer is modeled and fitted to more than 1,700 matches over the seasons 1996 - 2001. In a second-step, attendance prob- abilities are predicted for the seasons 2002 - 2003 to estimate group sizes. A teamÕs group size is positively correlated with its memberships (rho =0.61, p<0.01), fan clubs (rho =0.59, p<0.01), and merchandising revenues (rho =0.49, p<0.05). Noteworthy, no similar correlations can be found for a teamÕs hometown population which has been the standard measure for market size in applied work so far.