Competition format, championship uncertainty and stadium attendance in European football – a small league perspective

Abstract

To increase the number of regular season games, small football leagues are often organized as quadruple round robin tournaments with teams playing each other four times. Theoretically , however, the more games played, the less uncertain is the championship race, reducing fan interest in the league. This article uses data from Austria and Switzerland to study the relationship between competition format, championship uncertainty and attendance demand empirically . Results suggest that a team still in contention to win the championship positively affects attendance, while it is not the specificity of the competition format that per se contributes to less championship uncertainty.