A case for complements? Location and attendance in Major League Soccer

ABSTRACT

As Major League Soccer (MLS) continues to award expansion franchises throughout North America, the league must be considerate of how new clubs may impact attendance levels at nearby clubs. Regardless of whether new MLS clubs are awarded to cities with strong North American Soccer League histories, league officials must be mindful of the effect that geographically close competitors can have on attendance. Perhaps stemming from the limited number of clubs in competition, MLS teams currently appear to operate as strategic complements to one another, increasing season-long attendance as teams locate closer to one another.

KEYWORDS:

• Attendance
• rivalries
• scheduling
• US professional soccer

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• Z21
• L83
• L13

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Jill McCluskey, Robby Rosenman, Ron Mittelhammer and Jason Winfree for the comments and guidance throughout the process. I would also like to thank session participants at The Western Economic Association Meetings in Seattle for their thoughtful critiques. I received no funding from outside sources for the completion of this work. Any errors are solely my responsibility.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ A Box–Cox transformation of the distance between two clubs revealed a lambda of 0.3512; however, a square root exponent is used to simplify the interpretation of the variable.

² While 322 miles is the sample average, over the last 10 years, Major League Soccer has significantly reduced the distance between clubs. The average distance between neighbouring clubs over the last three years has been 254 miles.

Additional information

Funding

I received no funding from outside sources for the completion of this work.