The Key for Increasing Attendance Over the Season', Sport & Entertainment Review, Vol
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Citation for published version: Biscaia, R 2015, 'Spectators’ experiences at the sport and entertainment facility: The key for increasing attendance over the season', Sport & Entertainment Review, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 57-64. <https://serjournal.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/ser-1.2.pdf> Publication date: 2015 Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Link to publication University of Bath Alternative formats If you require this document in an alternative format, please contact: [email protected] General rights Copyright and moral rights for the publications made accessible in the public portal are retained by the authors and/or other copyright owners and it is a condition of accessing publications that users recognise and abide by the legal requirements associated with these rights. Take down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Download date: 04. Oct. 2021 Sport & Entertainment Review, 2015, 1, 57-64, © 2015 West Virginia University Spectators’ Experiences at the Sport and Entertainment Facility: The Key for Increasing Attendance Over the Season Rui Biscaia, European University, Lisbon ttending live sporting events is a popular leisure and en- Atertainment activity in contemporary European societ- ies, none more important than football (the sport Americans refer to as soccer). For example, according to Deloitte’s (2014) annual report about the football industry, the top 20 Europe- an clubs generated combined revenues of over €5.4 billion in 2012-13, including almost €1.2 billion in gate receipts. How- ever, due to myriad aspects such as the difficult economic environment in many countries, the increased competition of other leisure/entertainment activities, the importance of selling broadcasting rights, and the development of new technologies, clubs now face the challenge of retaining and even increasing this high demand. In this sense, clubs need to look for the games as regular opportunities to strengthen the link with current and prospective spectators by providing memorable consumption and/or entertainment experiences that include more than just the competition between two teams on the field, court, ice, track, or better yet, the stage. Achieving high attendance levels on a regular basis is vital for sport clubs due to the direct impact on ticket sales and other match-day revenues such as parking, food and bever- Rui Biscaia, PhD, is an assistant professor in the School of ages, merchandise, and souvenirs. Furthermore, it should be Tourism, Sports & Hospitality and is an invited assistant noted that a full stadium or arena is a strong attraction for professor in the Faculty of Human Kinetic at the Universi- other potential attendees, because the event increases its so- ty of Lisbon. His research interests include sport consump- cial relevance and people want to experience the exhilarating tion behavior and sport sponsorship. atmosphere inside the stadium. To illustrate this, Sporting Lisbon recently launched a campaign to bring more spec- Correspondence should be sent to: tators to the stadium in which the club’s president invites Rui Biscaia everybody to go to the stadium and be the “twelfth player” European University, Lisbon of the team. He urged the fans to remember that the team School of Tourism, Sports & Hospitality counts on their interaction to put Sporting Lisbon in the Estrada da Correia, n 53 place it deserves (Sporting, 2013). This is a direct reference 1500-210 Lisboa, Portugal of the importance that spectators may have on the core prod- Email: [email protected] uct (e.g., cheering, whistling, motivating, etc.) regarding the Spectator’s Experiences at teh Sport and Entertainment Facility: The Key for Increasing Attendance Over the Season team’s performance. Moreover, spectators may directly or tioned and it was rarely the most salient thought they had indirectly affect the sales and the interest of media and spon- about the experience at the stadium. The subsequent empir- sors (Theysohn, Hinz, Nosworthy, & Kirchner, 2009). Spe- ical studies we conducted, as well as a number of studies fo- cifically, through an increase in spectators’ attendance lev- cused on spectators’ experiences at the stadium, provide im- els, clubs tend to become more attractive to the sponsoring portant support for those initial interviews with Portuguese brands because sponsors want to expose their products to a fans. On the basis of previous research, I believe there are at great amount of potential consumers in a highly emotional least seven measures that sport and entertainment entities environment. could implement in order to increase spectators’ behavioral Sport marketing researchers have launched numerous intentions. new ideas to aid practitioners at increasing attendance lev- els. A substantial number of studies conducted by scholars Measures to Adopt by Sport Clubs such as Jeffrey James (Florida State University), Galen Trail (Seattle University), Daniel Funk (Temple University), James 1. Make sure fans believe players honor the team’s Zhang (University of Georgia), Stephen Ross (University of jersey through their performance Minnesota), Bob Heere (University of South Carolina), Mas- 2. Maintain high standards of functional quality ayuki Yoshida (Biwako Seiki Sport College, Japan), Dae Hee 3. Create an aesthetic pleasing atmosphere Kwak (University of Michigan), and Nicholas Theodorakis 4. Trigger positive emotions within attendees (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), among others, 5. Help supporters to create favorable team brand contributed to understanding how spectators’ experiences at associations the stadium are important to strengthen their positive inten- 6. Work with sponsors to attract spectators and main- tions to attend and recommend future games, and thus con- tain attendance tributing to the clubs’ financial sustainability. With that in 7. Develop membership programs mind, I am proposing a set of strategies to aid managers with increasing the attendance at their respective sport and enter- tainment venues, by linking anecdotal evidence with find- 1. Make sure fans believe players honor the ings from past research conducted by my colleagues and I in team’s jersey through their performance the sport environment. While this study is mainly directed towards managers working for sport clubs, it may also pro- The outcome of a game is always unpredictable and not vide guidance to managers working in other entertainment under the control of sport managers. We all recognize that industries. The section below identifies several strategies having good training facilities, hiring the best players, se- evolving from my work that I believe help increase stadium lecting appropriate training methods, and having great game attendance as a method to enhance organizational success. plans are important aspects to increase the team’s ability to succeed. Still, the final game result is always uncertain, and there is nothing one can do to create a standard performance Strategies to Increase Stadium Attendance of the team and its opponents. It is virtually impossible to Yoshida, James, and Cronin (2013) mentioned that a good know for sure if a player will dribble toward the opponent impression caused by a sporting event can determine a spec- and escape to its right or its left, or even if he/she will score tator’s intention to continue supporting the team in the future a goal next game. In the same vein, who would imagine, for and this finding fits very well with my first experiences as a example, Bayern Munich to be defeated 4-0 by Real Madrid researcher. As a doctoral student at the University of Lisbon, in the Champions league semifinals of 2013-2014, after they I had the opportunity to work with the most popular Portu- seemingly dominated European football in the year and a guese sports website named “A Bola.” A Bola is the national half leading up to that game? leader in terms of page views and visitors since 2010 (Meios e It is common to listen to coaches during the press confer- Publicidade, 2014). Additionally, I was able to work with “SL ences saying they cannot promise a victory, but their play- Benfica,” which was already acknowledged as the club with ers will fight with all their strength to do it. In fact, the role the largest number of paid members in the World (Guinness of players’ effort in the field was empirically supported in a World Records, 2007). In preparing some of the studies, my study I published with my colleagues using a sample of 1,355 colleagues and I conducted many interviews with fans and consumers from the Portuguese top professional football we frequently heard that being at the stadium supporting the league (Biscaia, Correia, Yoshida, Rosado, & Marôco, 2013). team was probably the most relevant moment of the week. The aspect with the strongest impact on spectators’ intentions Interestingly, even though fans commonly pointed out the to keep attending games and recommend them to others was game result as an important aspect of the event, the team’s related with player effort, and it was measured based on their victory was far from being the only important aspect men- opinion about the three following questions: “My team gives 100% every game,” “My team plays hard all the time,” and Biscaia Volume 1 • Number 2 • 2015 • SER 58 Spectator’s Experiences at teh Sport and Entertainment Facility: The Key for Increasing Attendance Over the Season “Players on my team always try to do their best.” The im- and are the reasons we have for not attending an event. Aware plication of this finding is that spectators tend to keep sup- of the importance of these aspects, SL Benfica and my re- porting the team if they feel that the players do their best to search group developed a partnership to measure some func- honor the team’s jersey, which highlights how important the tional aspects of the service during game days.