Our fans in the north: the demand for British Rugby League

Abstract

This paper reports the results of estimating a single equation model of an attendance function for British Rugby League over the seasons 1982/83 to 1990/91. The data are panel data covering virtually every team which played in the two division league over the nine year time period. Diagnostic tests indicate that the appropriate model is a semilog random effects model, where the dependent variable is league attendance weighted by population. The major results are as follows: there are significant positive relationships between league attendance and various measures of team success (although the direction of causality is moot), team quality (as proxied by the two divisions) and the economic quality of team location (as proxied by the unemployment rate); but there is no discernible relationship between league attendance and either success in nonleague trophy competitions or measures of exceptional player quality.