Spectator demand for the sport of kings

Figures & data

Figure 1. Number of race-days, 2002–2018

Figure 2. Mean of average field size, 2002–2018

Figure 3. Median attendances, 2002–2018

Table 1. Description of covariates

Consumer preferences
days since last fixture	number of days between the start of the current meeting and the previous fixture at that racecourse.
Economic factors
regional weekly wage	log of mean weekly wage (reported quarterly) from the economic region of the racecourse in 2018 prices.
unemployment-rate	quarterly unemployment-rate in the standard economic region of the racecourse where the race-day took place.
big meeting	race-days which are part of (flat) the Guineas, Derby or St. Leger Meetings or Royal Ascot or Glorious Goodwood; (jumps) the Cheltenham Festival or the Grand National or King George VI Meetings^a; (all-weather) the All-Weather Championships Finals Day
big flat fixture same day/big all-weather fixture same day/big jumps fixture same day	big flat fixture same day = 1 when there is a ‘big flat meeting’ on the same day as the subject meeting. The big jumps/all-weather fixture same day dummy variables are similarly constructed
Wimbledon, Six Nations on tv; London Olympics, Ashes tests; FIFA World Cup, EURO Championship.	Wimbledon = 1 if the race-day coincided with the tennis tournament; Six Nations on tv refers to televised international rugby matches; London Olympics covers the period of the 2012 Games; Ashes tests captures any influence from the final two tests of the England-Australia series in 2005^b; FIFA World Cup and the football EURO Championship are for race-days taking place at the same time^c as England was playing a match in the respective tournament.
Quality of viewing
Monday afternoon start, Tuesday afternoon start, etc, and time of day (Mon.-Thu. evening start, Friday evening start	‘start’ refers to the time of the first race, an evening meeting is one where that race starts at 5 p.m. or later. Reference day is Saturday.
bank holiday	=1 if the race-day is a public holiday; not defined to be mutually exclusive with the day of week variables.
month dummies	Reference is October.
Rainfall	Rainfall (mm.) recorded on the race-day (source: Met Office Integrated Data Archive System).
Characteristics of the sporting contest
relative prize money	total race-day prize money divided by the mean prize money for all race-days in that code in that year.
lowest prize money	lowest prize money at the race-day divided by the mean of the lowest prize in each race-day in that code and year.
McCoy farewell	=1 race-day where McCoy competed during his pre-retirement period.
Crowley/Fallon/Moore/Sanders/Johnson	=1 if the named jockey featured in the season after he had been Champion jockey.
Frankel	=1 for race-days where Frankel appeared after winning the 2,000 Guineas.
fewer/more than seven races	‘seven races’ is the reference category.
big meeting$\times$trend	big meeting$\times$year trend.
mean field size	mean field size for the race-day
Shergar Cup	race-day held in most years since 1999, where horses belong to teams which compete for points.

a In the cases of Royal Ascot and the King George VI Meeting, there was one year where venue was switched because of redevelopment work. Here, ‘big meeting’ was still set to one but, for the fixed effects, the venue was taken as the temporary host course.

b.These were the final games in a drama-filled series; ‘cricket fever’ was such that it was claimed that falls in football attendances were attributable to fans watching the cricket. During these games, television audiences reached 8 m. That these contests generated abnormal interest may be gauged from the fact that, the next time England played Australia at home, in 2009, the television audience never reached 2 m (Fordyce 2015).

c Events were defined as taking place at the same time if any part of the scheduled time for the football match overlapped with a period from one hour before to one hour after the racing programme at the race-day.

Table 2a Summary statistics (continuous variables)

	mean	standard deviation	minimum	maximum
Flat (n = 9,745)
attendance	6,150.9	7,844.5	289	78,790
log regional weekly wage	6.408	0.103	6.201	6.624
unemployment-rate	5.598	1.735	2.800	11.600
days since last fixture	22.006	39.164	2	608
relative prize money	0.999	1.874	0.027	32.853
lowest prize money	1.000	1.764	0	84.467
mean field size	10.176	2.334	4	20.857
rainfall	2.045	4.498	0	76.400
All-Weather (n = 5,147)
attendance	1,111.0	1,089.2	111	18,598
log regional weekly wage	6.446	0.105	6.207	6.624
unemployment-rate	5.583	1.650	2.800	10.700
days since last fixture	5.411	7.707	2	327
relative prize money	0.996	0.839	0.121	22.715
lowest prize money	1.000	0.731	0.515	34.360
mean field size	9.679	1.763	4.714	16.167
rainfall	2.388	4.842	0	64.5
Jumps (n = 9,107)
attendance	4,107.6	6,845.9	79	71,293
log regional weekly wage	6.384	0.090	6.190	6.624
unemployment-rate	5.740	1.771	2.8	11.6
days since last fixture	25.329	37.458	2	1,390
relative prize money	0.998	1.552	0.0613249	25.213
lowest prize money	0.998	1.182	0	16.729
mean field size	9.368	2.296	3.333	22.667
rainfall	2.323	4.693	0	96.2

Table 2b Mean values (dummy variables)

	Flat	All-Weather	Jumps
big flat fixture same day	0.108	0.031	0.037
big all-weather fixture same	0.0004	0.0008	0.0001
big jumps fixture same day	0.004	0.034	0.023
London Olympics	0.006	0.002	0.001
Wimbledon	0.088	0.020	0.017
Six Nations on tv	0.002	0.030	0.039
fourth Ashes test (2005)	0.001	0.000	0.000
fifth Ashes test (2005)	0.001	0.000	0.000
FIFA World Cup	0.003	0.001	0.001
EURO Championship	0.002	0.001	0.000
Monday afternoon start	0.075	0.122	0.089
Tuesday afternoon start	0.099	0.112	0.096
Wednesday afternoon start	0.100	0.122	0.119
Thursday afternoon start	0.105	0.093	0.132
Friday afternoon start	0.116	0.101	0.116
Mon.-Thu. evening start	0.137	0.180	0.066
Friday evening start	0.065	0.055	0.016
Sunday	0.064	0.031	0.131
Bank Holiday	0.027	0.013	0.040
January		0.135	0.086
February		0.119	0.089
March	0.007	0.108	0.117
April	0.072	0.080	0.101
May	0.152	0.047	0.101
June	0.179	0.049	0.053
July	0.192	0.044	0.044
August	0.185	0.054	0.044
September	0.125	0.062	0.038
November	0.009	0.106	0.131
December		0.117	0.110
A.P. McCoy farewell			0.005
Crowley	0.015	0.013
Fallon	0.059	0.019
Moore	0.041	0.020
Sanders	0.012	0.017
Johnson			0.080
Frankel	0.001
fewer than seven races	0.361	0.228	0.301
more than seven races	0.175	0.361	0.055
big meeting	0.040	0.001	0.015
Shergar Cup	0.002
2001	0.049	0.033	0.014
2003	0.057	0.032	0.054
2004	0.057	0.043	0.055
2005	0.055	0.045	0.054
2006	0.051	0.058	0.055
2007	0.051	0.058	0.052
2008	0.054	0.072	0.055
2009	0.059	0.066	0.055
2010	0.060	0.063	0.053
2011	0.059	0.062	0.063
2012	0.054	0.063	0.057
2013	0.057	0.065	0.059
2014	0.057	0.063	0.060
2015	0.057	0.064	0.061
2016	0.056	0.064	0.060
2017	0.057	0.065	0.063
2018	0.056	0.070	0.060

Table 3. Regression results, dependent variable ln(attendance)

	Flat		All-Weather		Jumps
	coeff. estimate	ǀzǀ	coeff. estimate	ǀzǀ	coeff. estimate	ǀzǀ
log regional weekly wage	0.0495	0.29	0.4333*	1.72	0.3389**	2.38
unemployment-rate	−0.0082	1.14	0.0313***	2.64	−0.0014	0.23
big flat fixture same day	−0.0441***	3.53	0.0348	0.94	0.0112	0.57
big all-weather fixture same day	0.2002	1.13	0.0884	0.43	0.4671	1.49
big jumps fixture same day	−0.0830	1.34	0.0359	1.06	0.2706***	11.12
London Olympics	0.1232**	2.57	−0.1249	1.04	−0.1233	1.22
Wimbledon	−0.0412***	2.93	−0.1743***	3.75	−0.1225***	4.24
Six Nations on tv	−0.2388**	2.57	−0.1127***	2.97	−0.0229	1.16
fourth Ashes test (2005)	−0.1848*	1.88	0.1406	0.35	−0.0497	0.27
fifth Ashes test (2005)	−0.0265	0.27	−0.9585**	2.37	−0.0878	0.39
FIFA World Cup	−0.2213***	3.19	−0.4246***	2.75	−0.0836	0.70
EURO Championship	−0.1914**	2.48	−0.4245**	2.08	−0.2382	1.30
rainfall	−0.0082***	5.78	−0.0042*	1.91	−0.0066***	5.84
rainfall squared	0.0002***	4.20	0.0000	0.47	0.0001**	2.39
Monday afternoon start	−0.9532***	54.53	−0.9857***	41.14	−0.6023***	37.51
Tuesday afternoon start	−0.9208***	57.70	−0.8751***	35.25	−0.6247***	39.35
Wednesday afternoon start	−0.8196***	50.76	−0.7980***	34.22	−0.6170***	43.31
Thursday afternoon start	−0.8719***	56.55	−0.8400***	33.02	−0.5898***	41.72
Friday afternoon start	−0.7301***	46.97	−0.7038***	28.39	−0.4171***	28.80
Mon.-Thu. evening start	−0.6634***	43.35	−0.8702***	36.65	−0.5597***	30.63
Friday evening start	−0.0511***	2.75	−0.4721***	15.27	−0.1001***	3.36
Sunday	−0.2289***	13.28	−0.3641***	9.94	−0.1287***	9.54
Bank Holiday	0.0145	0.57	0.5233***	9.25	0.3528***	16.94
January			−0.2599***	9.35	−0.4430***	25.71
February			−0.2359***	8.13	−0.2812***	16.07
March	0.0499	1.07	−0.1403***	4.78	−0.1834***	11.37
April	0.0455**	2.20	0.0043	0.14	−0.0239	1.47
May	0.1092***	6.33	0.1223***	3.56	0.0322*	1.90
June	0.3401***	19.43	0.3581***	9.53	0.2259***	10.67
July	0.4715***	26.73	0.5054***	13.98	0.2962***	13.01
August	0.4248***	24.53	0.4853***	14.65	0.3687***	17.05
September	0.2090***	12.26	0.1784***	5.90	0.1205***	5.65
November	−0.0087	0.22	−0.1667***	6.18	−0.1126***	7.34
December	0.0000	.	0.0516*	1.88	−0.0848***	5.20
days since last fixture	0.0012***	11.17	0.0054***	7.26	0.0008***	8.30
relative prize money	0.0896***	14.66	0.0778***	4.43	0.2189***	23.24
relative prize money squared	−0.0032***	12.96	−0.0031**	2.03	−0.0073***	15.02
lowest prize money	0.0704***	8.86	0.1252***	3.33	0.0261*	1.96
lowest prize money squared	−0.0009***	8.28	−0.0027***	2.88	−0.0021**	2.04
A.P. McCoy farewell		.		.	0.2266***	4.72
Crowley	0.1156***	3.39	0.0696	1.25
Fallon	0.0008	0.04	0.1144**	2.50
Moore	0.0373*	1.80	0.0596	1.39
Johnson					0.0526***	3.26
Frankel	0.3345**	2.57
fewer than seven races	−0.0278***	2.87	−0.0450***	2.71	−0.0269***	3.20
more than seven races	0.0252**	2.29	−0.0123	0.83	0.0556***	3.58
big meeting	0.1964***	4.07	−0.5611	0.57	0.5493***	6.66
big meeting$\times$trend	−0.0028	0.77	0.0200	0.29	0.0182***	3.00
mean field size	0.0688***	6.23	0.1825***	6.09	0.0667***	6.82
mean field size squared	−0.0022***	4.48	−0.0067***	4.44	−0.0018***	3.71
Shergar Cup	0.0077	0.08
2001	−0.0584**	2.43	−0.0782	1.37	−0.0705***	3.00
2003	0.0615***	2.84	0.0285	0.64	−0.0121	0.59
2004	0.0068	0.30	−0.0460	1.06	−0.0219	1.04
2005	0.0110	0.45	−0.1448***	3.24	−0.0333	1.53
2006	−0.0212	0.83	−0.1622***	3.52	−0.0722***	3.14
2007	−0.0245	0.93	−0.1918***	3.98	−0.0772***	3.26
2008	−0.1098***	4.28	−0.2283***	4.81	−0.1562***	6.70
2009	−0.1666***	5.10	−0.4609***	8.12	−0.1788***	6.35
2010	−0.1302***	4.08	−0.3561***	6.23	−0.2025***	7.12
2011	−0.0972***	3.09	−0.2620***	4.70	−0.1368***	5.04
2012	−0.1629***	5.11	−0.3604***	6.47	−0.1961***	7.27
2013	−0.1561***	5.30	−0.3875***	7.08	−0.2543***	9.91
2014	−0.1572***	6.38	−0.2590***	5.64	−0.1994***	9.23
2015	−0.1477***	6.15	−0.1517***	3.45	−0.1731***	8.29
2016	−0.1795***	7.34	−0.1795***	4.07	−0.2165***	10.06
2017	−0.2499***	9.56	−0.2110***	4.67	−0.2315***	10.47
2018	−0.2192***	8.78	−0.3395***	7.78	−0.3219***	14.21
constant	7.6989***	6.96	3.4185**	2.10	5.5922***	6.18
observations	9745		5147		9107
R^2 within	0.628		0.606		0.653
R^2 between	0.845		0.249		0.795
R^2 overall	0.638		0.566		0.651

Table 4. Other insights

Variable	Interpretation
income elasticity	Limited evidence that temporal variations in average income in the region influence racecourse admissions except for jumps where an elasticity of +0.361 is estimated.
unemployment-rate	The regional unemployment-rate is significant only for all-weather. The positive sign suggests attendance increases when potential attendees have more leisure time. In contrast to other codes, all-weather fixtures are often ‘twilight’ meetings and frequency of events at particular tracks is high.
scheduling	Crowds are much higher on Saturdays than other days. Results show that an identical flat race-day run on Monday would be expected to reduce the crowd by about 61% compared with Saturday.^a Effects for other days and for jumps are smaller but still very large. A notable exception is that Friday evening flat and jumps programmes have proved popular. Though still statistically significantly lower than on Saturday, the demand for flat racing appears to be only 5% lower (9.5% in the case of jumps) making Friday evening more like the weekend than like midweek.^b
days since last fixture	Strongly significant for all three codes. Effect size highest for all-weather, where, e.g. a decrease of one week is associated with a 3.7% fall in attendance.
weather	Negative effect on attendance at flat and all-weather. There is still a statistically significant impact on jumps but effect size is appreciably lower. For flat, a thoroughly wet day (15 mm of rain rather than none) would depress expected attendance by 11.3% underlining the importance of promoting advance ticket sales to reduce the risk of losing revenue due to poor weather and/or seeking weather insurance cover.
prize money	Audience size proves sensitive to quality in all three codes with effect highest in jumps, e.g. doubling the prize money from that of an average race-day (relative prize money = 1) to that of a better race-day (relative prize money = 2) would increase expected attendance by 50%. Note that the variable is measured relative to other races in the same year and results cannot be used to predict the effect of increasing prize money across the board over time.
field size	Additional horses have only very small effects on expected audience if field-size-per-race is already around 10. Where field sizes are low, the proportionate effect on attendance of an extra horse-per-race becomes more telling. An increase from 6 to 7 in runners-per-race would raise expected attendance by more than 4% at flat and jumps race-days and by 10% at all-weather.
stars	Kieron Fallon was one of the best-known flat jockeys in the data period. As a ‘top’ jockey, he competed relatively infrequently in all-weather racing. Given that meetings at each all-weather track are quite frequent, his appearance at a particular fixture would plausibly attract those who are selective in terms of attendance. His presence raised expected (all-weather) attendance by 12%. Attendances at race-days at which jockey A.P. McCoy competed in the two months between announcing his retirement and his last ride are estimated to have been elevated by 25%. Frankel is estimated to have elevated estimated attendance by 39.7%. That seems a genuine superstar effect. It is conceivable that public interest in Frankel may also have increased attendances across sport but we cannot test this formally.
number of races	On the margin, quantity appears to influence attendance decisions, at least for flat and jumps. Coefficient estimates are highly significant even if effect size is modest. Adding a seventh race increases expected attendance at all-weather by nearly 5%.
competition with other events	Big flat meetings appear to reduce the attendance at other flat meetings on the same day, by 4.4%. Anomalously, jumps fixtures tended to be much better attended when they coincided with major jumps festivals elsewhere. An England match in one of the summer football tournaments reduces expected attendance in flat (about 20%) and all-weather (about 35%).^c Flat and all-weather seem to experience much lower crowds when Six Nations rugby is scheduled. Racing seems to be negatively affected by Wimbledon. On the other hand, attendances at flat races were relatively high at the time of the London Olympics, an event which lasted sixteen days and perhaps induced a national party mood.
Team racing	The effect is not significant. Perhaps the problem is that, in contrast to golf and tennis team events, the teams have been somewhat artificial constructs to which fans are unlikely to feel affinity.

a.Given the log-linear specification, the estimated percentage impact on the dependent variable of a one-unit increase in a predictor (such as from 0 to 1) is given by 100(e^β-1) where β is the relevant coefficient estimate.

b.It is clear that there is very low spectator demand on some days of the week. Nevertheless, it may be worthwhile for the sport still to supply racing because this generates off-track betting turnover from which it extracts a share of bookmaker winnings and associated media rights.

c.we detect no effect on jumps attendances but note that the number of observations is low as the football is scheduled outwith the main jumps season.

Fordyce, T. 2015, July 6. “Ashes 2015.” Will English cricket ever regain its 2005 lustre? BBC. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/33407465

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