Should I stay (at home) or should I go (to the stadium)? Why will some football supporters not return to the stadium after the COVID-19 pandemic in German Bundesliga?

ABSTRACT

Caused by COVID-19 pandemic the last matches of the 2019/2020 season and almost all of the matches of the 2020/2021 season had to be played behind closed doors in the German Bundesliga. I ask which factors prevent football supporters from returning to the stadium after the COVID-19 pandemic? These questions are answered with the help of a quantitative survey among the supporters of a major Bundesliga club. This club has launched this survey among its club members, season ticket holders and fan club members from 26 March 2021to 11 April 2021. In total, 28,111 people completed the questionnaire. The analysis shows that the two factors of ‘feeling at home before’ and ‘feeling at home during the COVID-19 pandemic’ made fans want to return to the stadium. Fear of COVID-19 in general and a negative assessment of developments in football in general made supporters reluctant to come to the stadium.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic caused nearly all service industries to go into lockdown in 2020 and 2021. Among other restrictions, shops and restaurants had to close.¹ In the German Bundesliga, there were no football matches from 13 March to the middle of May 2020. This applied not only to the Bundesliga but also to all other football leagues in Europe. Hammerschmidt et al. summarized the situation of international football leagues during the COVID-19 pandemic.² On 16 May 2020 the Bundesliga restarted but all matches took place without spectators. With the exception of five games, the end of the 2019/2020 season and the entire 2020/2021 season were all played as ghost games. In the 2020/2021 season, the first five match days were played with a reduced number of spectators. This meant that each club had two or three home matches with reduced attendance. In the case of the club that is analysed in this study, it was three games. Between 10% to 25% of the normal spectator capacity was allowed in the stadiums if there was an appropriate hygiene concept.³ For the case analysed in this study, a maximum of 10,000 visitors for the first match and 13,000 visitors for the second match were allowed to enter the stadium. On the third home match day, only 300 spectators were allowed into the stadium. All other matches were played as ghost games for the rest of the 2020/2021 season. However, only 9,300 and 11,500 spectators attended the first two home matches instead of the 10,000 or 13,000 who were allowed to attend. Apparently, many fans of the usually sold-out stadium with an average of more than 80,000 visitors preferred not to attend.⁴ This leads to the following research questions: Will supporters come back to the stadium after the COVID-19 pandemic? And if this is not the case, then which factors prevent the football supporters from returning to the stadium after the COVID-19 pandemic?

Games without fans mean that the stadium vibe and excitement is completely lost. The co-production of the joint good by the spectators, e.g. cheering, choreography,⁵ the noise, and the atmosphere is broken.⁶ As Drewes et al. summarize: ‘The services produced are not the soccer matches but games with a stadium atmosphere, i.e. with a certain “event character”. This product would be produced jointly by the clubs and the crowd making noise in the stadium’.⁷ In general, ghost games have two main implications: (1) economic implications for the clubs, and (2) they probably impact on the close ties of fans to the football club.

1. Without spectators in the stadium, the clubs lose the matchday revenues from selling tickets. Bond et al.⁸ analyse the proportion of the matchday income as a percent of the total revenue from the clubs in the Premier League. Even though the clubs in the first half of the table generate high matchday incomes, broadcasting rights and their revenues are much more important for them.⁹ The same is true for the Bundesliga.¹⁰ As Horky emphasizes only 13 % of the total revenue mix belongs to the share of spectator revenue on average for all Bundesliga clubs.¹¹ However, matchday income is much more important for the lower leagues and other professional team sports in Germany.¹² Using consumption capital theory Horky argues that the COVID-19 pandemic might be widen the gap between major and small professional sports in Germany because broadcasting ghost games increases consumption capital. The basic assumption of consumption capital theory is that you enjoy something more that you know well. A broadcasted game is better known than a non-broadcasted game.¹³

2. If supporters cannot support their club in the stadium for over one year, then they are likely to lose their close ties to the football club. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the matchday was the centre of the week for the supporters.¹⁴ For most supporters, football was very important in their lives.¹⁵ Not only do spectators as individuals perceive consequenses during the COVID-19 pandemic but so does the local community. ‘Indeed, football clubs are deeply entwined in their communities, they will have a major impact on health, wellbeing, social capital, happiness, and identity of its inhabitants.’¹⁶ During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were no matchdays with supporters because they were not allowed to enter the stadium. Consequently, there is no collective experience, no peer-group-feeling in the stadium, and therefore no atmosphere. Without a matchday and a visit of the stadium, the fans’ perceptions could change. ‘Football without fans is nothing.’¹⁷ And one can add: fans without football are no longer fans. Fans may learn to spend their weekends without football, planning days with the family instead. If so, then the fans could become alienated from football and their own club. However, whether this is indeed the reality is an empirical question that will only be answered when spectators are allowed back into the stadium.¹⁸ But, will the fans return as if nothing had happened? What are factors that influence this decision?

In contrast to the economic impacts of empty stadiums, a research gap exists: what are the fans’ perceptions and will they remain committed to football and their club, and therefore return to the stadium after the pandemic? Are there factors that have an influence on this perception?

In this paper, we will first give a short overview of different groups of supporters and will review the literature of football and football fans during the COVID-19 pandemic. Afterwards, we give a theoretical underpinning to develop three hypotheses for factors that may influence supporters not to return to the stadium. These hypotheses will then be tested with a quantitative study of supporters from one of the biggest German football clubs. This club launched a large survey among its club members, season ticket holders and fan club members in spring 2021. In total, 28,111 respondents fully completed the questionnaire. Due to the very high response rate, the dataset can be considered to be representative of the season ticket holders and the members of this Bundesliga club. Finally, the empirical results will be presented and discussed.

Three different groups of supporters in the German Bundesliga

The question of supporters’ return is always linked to supporters’ perceptions of whether their views also matter to the clubs’ actions. For example, Bond et al. emphasize that football clubs are involved in the local community.¹⁹ Bauers et al. show the connection between the organizational involvement of fans in the club and the perception of the ‘50 + 1 Rule’.²⁰ García and Llopis-Goig provide empirical evidence on how the attitudes of football fans are related to the respective countries and their governance structure. Even if the German model of club ownership is more democratic for supporters compared to other countries, German fans tend to rate their role in football governance as medium.²¹ Wilkesmann and Blutner and Sanchez et al. show the relationship between club ownership and fan involvement and thus fan perceptions.²²

In Germany, supporters can be very closely connected to their club as members.²³ Since 2000, the first league (Bundesliga) and the second league (2. Bundesliga) have been organized as a professional football league association. The 36 members of the association can be organized either as joint stock companies or as a German registered association (‘e.V.’).²⁴ Supporters can become members of their club when the club is organized as a German registered association (‘e.V.’). Even when the club is a joint stock company under German law (i.e., GmbH, GmbH & Co. KG, AG), the 50 + 1 rule exists, which states that the club must hold the majority in the teams’ boards.²⁵ The supporters again can be members in clubs and the clubs themselves hold the majority of the company.²⁶ Even if this construction somewhat diminishes the direct influence of the fans,²⁷ they can still have some say in the annual general meetings. In the case analysed here, the company is a stock company, but it has the particular German legal form in which the German registered association (‘e.V.’) has all voting rights of the company. Therefore, at least in theory, the members have a voice option in the company.²⁸ However, the emotional closeness and loyalty to the club that is expressed by their membership is more important. The same applies to season ticket holders. We can assume that season ticket holders have a high level of loyalty to their club. In addition, we can assume that members of fan clubs also have a high emotional attachment to their club. Therefore, supporters are defined as club members, season ticket holders, and members of fan clubs. For all individuals who belong to one of these three categories, we can assume that they have a strong attachment to their club and will therefore return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, if individuals from these three categories do not want to return to the stadium, then we must question what destroyed this close connection and strong loyalty.

Studies of football and football supporters in the COVID-19 pandemic

Recently, a thread of literature about the COVID-19 pandemic and football has emerged. For example, Meyer et al. evaluate the restart of the German Bundesliga from a medical perspective and describe the results of PCR testing the players²⁹; how the leagues could be restarted under strict medical assessment³⁰; the impact on fitness training, physical preparation, and recovery under the condition of COVID-19³¹; and the hygiene strategies for the spectators’ safe return to the stadium.³²

Another group of studies focuses on the economic consequences of the lockdown. With the loss of matchday income, television revenues take on even greater significance and importance.³³ Some authors describe the economic situation in a specific league,³⁴ or the financial interests of the clubs and the impacts on the local community.³⁵

Some literature deals with the new relationship between supporters and club. Manoli describes how COVID-19 eliminated the direct relationship between football and its fans and how it is mediated via television.³⁶ Reade and Singleton give empirical evidence that in Italy, England, and Germany the stadium attendances were negatively affected by the previous day’s confirmed COVID-19 infection cases and number of deaths.³⁷ Meanwhile, Reade at al.³⁸ analyse the stadium attendance in one football league without lockdown during the pandemic.

Another body of literature explores the fact that the home advantage disappeared or referees punished players on the away teams significantly less during ghost games.³⁹ For example, Reade and Singleton show that during the ghost games 45% of the away teams won in comparison to 35% in the season before.⁴⁰ Sanchez and Lavin give empirical evidence for the German case that playing without spectators leads to the fact that the home advantage disappears.⁴¹ Wunderlich et al. show that referees’ sanctioning of away teams disappears statistically significant in the absence of spectators with regard to fouls, yellow cards, and red cards.⁴² Moore embeds the COVID-19 pandemic in a historical context and compares the situation to other extreme events where football has been suspended.⁴³

The factors the influence the supporters’ behaviour not to return to the stadium

Various typologies of supporters are developed in literature. Well-known is the typology of Giulianotti, who distinguishes the following forms: (1) supporter as the traditional fan, (2) follower as a person who has no need for an itinerant attachment to the club, (3) fan as a person who align herself or himself with the club for a certain player, (4) flaneur as a person who supports the club from the armchair and the social practices are oriented towards consumption.⁴⁴ A more recent typology comes from Jaeger. He classifies the following forms: (1) active fans, (2) consuming fans, (3) event fans, (4) corporate fans, and (5) passive followers.⁴⁵ Other fandom theory, like the well-known approach from Taylor, use class theory for explaining fan behaviour.⁴⁶ Or more recently, Bourdieu’s concept of habitus and origins of practice are used for understanding football fandom origins.⁴⁷ In alignment with Bourdieu, Sandvoss puts it as follows: ‘Fandom is a matter of taste’.⁴⁸

The purpose of this article is not to empirically test a typology, but to analyse factors influencing the return to the stadium. Of course, a supporter in Giulianotti’s typology or an active fan in Jaeger’s classification have a higher identification with the club and are therefore more likely to return to the stadium than flaneurs or passive followers.

Only a few studies have developed empirical evidence for the identification of fans,⁴⁹ or identification and involvement of fans.⁵⁰ Schmidt and Koenigstorfer⁵¹ developed a concept of fan centricity as an organizational strategy, where the relationship between fans and club is reciprocal. In this section, the factors that influence the supporters’ behaviour not to return to the stadium will be derived.

Feeling at home: the supporters’ sense of belonging to their club

As mentioned earlier, we define supporters here as club members, season ticket holders, and fan club members. They all have a high loyalty to their club. But what does loyalty and emotional relationship mean for supporters? Bond et al. describes the relationship between supporters and club as follows:

A football club co-exists in a symbiotic relationship with its spectators, the greater the loyalty the more resources will flow from them to the football club. In return, the football club provides an identity, a cultural icon, escapism and a focus for social interaction.⁵²

Schmidt and Koenigstorfer⁵³ differentiate the various concepts of the relationship between supporters and football clubs that they find in the literature, as follows:

• Fan engagement describes an extra-role, non-transactional behaviour of the supporters.

• Fan participation indicates the influence of members on the club’s decision-making process.

• Fan commitment explains the intention of supporters to maintain their relationship to the club.

• Fan identification describes to what extent supporters perceive themselves as part of the club.

• Fan identity defines the attribution of perceived meaning for the club on individual supporters’ existence.

• Fan loyalty explains the degree to which supporters feel closely related to the club.

• Fan involvement describes the level of importance of a club to a supporter.

Another category of commitment is represented by supporters who invest a lot of personal resources and most of their spare time to create a choreographic performance in the stadium or a public protest for a ‘pure’ football, the so-called Ultras.⁵⁴ For them, football is their whole life. Using the concept of identity fusion, Knijnik and Newson describe the Ultras as a group of supporters in which the self of the members and the group become fused.⁵⁵ They probably represent the highest level of emotional attachment to a club. Additionally, Cocieru et al.⁵⁶ analyse a case of commitment and loyalty that goes one step further when supporters become club owners.

To prepare the online-questionnaire, various rounds of discussion took place with the author and the club’s employees who professionally serve supporters. The following criteria were identified to describe a strong supporter retention, which we will use here as a definition for ‘feeling at home’ in the sense of the feeling of being at home when the supporters have close emotional ties to the club:

• For these supporters, football in general and their club in particular have a high value and priority in their lives.

• These fans look forward to their team’s games all week.

• For these supporters, home games are moments where they can switch off from everyday worries and their job problems.

• For these supporters, football and attending games lead to a sense of feeling at home.

This was very much true for supporters prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. They organized their lives around the match days. The centre of all activities during the weekend was attending the game. Therefore, the first hypothesis states:

H1a: Supporters who felt more at home in their club before the COVID-19 pandemic will be more likely to return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The feeling of home and loyalty to the club may suffer due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and due to the fact that supporters can no longer go to the stadium and now do not organize their weekend around football. To differentiate the sense of belonging before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, the following hypothesis has been added:

H1b: Supporters who felt more at home in their club during the COVID-19 pandemic will be more likely to return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Perception of the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic sent shock waves throughout the whole of society, including football. Suddenly, going to the stadium was no longer possible. In the Bundesliga, a reduced number of spectators was permitted for the first three match days in the 2020/2021 season (as described earlier). Therefore, many supporters considered whether or not they wanted to attend these games. In view of the pandemic, the question arises: Does the pandemic itself create a situation where individuals generally no longer feel comfortable in a crowd or personally do not feel safe and protected? This can also be seen from the fact that attendance at stadiums, when visitors were still allowed, was also strongly correlated with incidence rates and death rates.⁵⁷ In general, the COVID-19 pandemic and the fear of contracting the disease was an important reason for avoiding stadium attendance. Either the hygiene concept may not have been convincing or the risk of infection may simply have been too great. In any case, football supporters are also affected by the fear of COVID-19 infection. Thus, the fear of COVID-19 may persist even after the pandemic has ended, causing a desire to avoid crowds. Therefore, the second hypothesis states:

H2: The greater the fear of exposure to the COVID-19 infection, the greater the likelihood that supporters will not return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Overall development of professional football

In recent years, a broad public debate has emerged about the overall development of professional football. The increasing commercialization is starting to be criticized. This development culminated in the planning for a European Super League, which was envisioned as a closed-shop league that would bring even more revenue to the financially strongest 20 clubs in Europe. These plans were only dropped after massive protests from the fans.⁵⁸ Although the Super League was publicly announced shortly after the completion of this survey, the discussion about the commercialization of football has existed for some time before. For example, there was criticism that the Bundesliga was becoming increasingly boring because there has only been one serial champion in the last nine years. The gap between the financially weak and the financially strong clubs is getting ever wider. Furthermore, social inequality between the clubs is increasing.⁵⁹ Likewise, the distance between professional football players and supporters is growing.

An intensive and mostly critical discussion of the economic and social development of professional football is especially widespread among supporters. It can therefore be assumed that a critical attitude towards developments in football leads to supporters becoming alienated from football. Therefore, the third hypothesis states:

H3: Supporters who assess the overall development of professional football in a negative way will be more likely to not return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methodology

Data collection and sample

The author worked with the fan support department of one of the biggest football clubs in the German Bundesliga to conduct an online survey. In particular, the author developed the questionnaire together with the staff of the support department. The employees, who are in daily contact with the supporters and who have known them for many years, discussed the operationalization in depth with the author. After completing the survey, all of the club members and all season tickets holders received an email with a link to the online survey. Thus, this is a complete survey of these two populations because the club has complete email lists of these two groups. Some season ticket holders are also club members, thus the email lists have been matched so that season ticket holders who are also club members have only received one email. Additionally, the chairmen of all supporter clubs located in Germany, Austria and Switzerland received an email with a request to forward the questionnaire to all members of their fan club. The list of fan clubs is up to date, but it cannot be guaranteed that all fan club chairmen have forwarded this email to all members.

Among the 130,903 club members, 22,491 completed the whole questionnaire (i.e., the response rate is 17.18%). The football club has 55,500 season ticket holders, of which 19,859 who are not also club members have been contacted. A total of 10,553 season ticket holders completed the whole questionnaire, of which 5,575 are club members, so that 4,978 fit into the category of season ticket holders who are not club members (i.e., the response rate is 25.06%). Among 60,710 fan club members, 4811 fully completed the questionnaire (i.e., 7.92% of the basic population completed the questionnaire). For this reason, the survey can be considered representative for the first two groups (members, season ticket holders), but not necessarily for the third group (fan club members). A total of 28,111 people completed the questionnaire. The survey took place in the period from 26 March to 11 April 2021. The study can therefore only give empirical evidence about supporters’ assessment at this point in time.

In the following, the sample is compared with some known categories of the population. Among the 400 people who hold an away season ticket, 255 completed the questionnaire in full (i.e., in this category 63.75% of the basic population completed the questionnaire). The questionnaire asked whether people were members of an Ultra group and 242 agreed with this question. The exact number of members of the Ultras is not known but is estimated by the fan department at around 300 people, consequently the response rate in this group is very high.

Measurement of the dependent variable

The interviewees were asked the following question, ‘Do you plan to go to the stadium as soon as it is possible again?’ The response categories were: ‘I will definitely go to the stadium again’, ‘I will go to the stadium again, but I will attend fewer games than before the pandemic’, ‘I don’t know at this point if I will go to the stadium again’, and ‘I will not go to the stadium again’. The response patterns are given in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Response to the question ‘Do you plan to go to the stadium as soon as it is possible again?’.

Although only a very small number of the supporters do not want to come back to the stadium, a larger group is still considering whether to come back.

For the following analysis, the dependent variable has been grouped into the following two categories: (1) ‘I will not go to the stadium again’ and also ‘I don’t know at this point if I will go to the stadium again’, and (0) includes the other two categories.

Measurement of the independent variables

Feeling at home before the COVID-19 pandemic

The following items are used to ask whether the supporters felt at home with their football club before the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the items were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree)

‘Football was very important in my life before the pandemic’.

‘[Name of football club] had a high priority in my life before the pandemic’.

‘[Name of football club] was like a home to me before the pandemic’.

‘I looked forward all week to my team’s games at the weekend’.

‘At [Name of football club]’s home games, I could switch off from everyday life and my job’.

A principal component analysis with the KMO value of .79 shows that all items load on one factor. The reliability is with α .816 very good.

All of the respondents felt very much at home with their club prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. This effect is stronger if the individuals are club members, season ticket holders or fan club members (see Table 1).

Table 1. Mean of factor ‚feel at home before the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Feel at home before C19	All	Club member	Non-club member	Season ticket	No season ticket	Fan club member	No fan club member
Mean	4.20	4.22**	4.12**	4.25**	4.17**	4.39**	4.16**

*p < .05. **p < .01

Feeling at home during the COVID-19 pandemic

The following items were used to ask whether respondents felt at home with their football club even during the COVID-19 pandemic. All of the items were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree):

‘Football has been very important in my life during the pandemic’.

‘[Name of football club] has a high value in my life during the pandemic’.

‘I watch [Name of football club] games on TV with friends and family’.

‘I look forward all week to my team’s games at the weekend’.

‘When I watch [Name of football club] games on TV, I can switch off from everyday life and my job’.

In this case, a principal component analysis with a KMO value of .826 shows that all items load on one factor with α .860. The item ‘[Name of football club] is like a home to me even during the pandemic’ has been deleted because without this item the Cronbach’s alpha value is higher.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, none of the respondents felt as much at home with their club as they did before the pandemic. However, it is interesting to note that season ticket holders and fan club members felt less at home than those who do not have a season ticket or are not fan club members (see Table 2).

Table 2. Mean of factor ‘feel at home during the COVID-19 pandemic’.

Feel at home during C19	All	Club member	Non-club member	Season ticket	No season ticket	Fan club member	No fan club member
Mean	3.45	3.50**	3.23**	3.22**	3.58**	3.36**	3.46**

*p < .05. **p < .01

COVID-19 pandemic as a reason for not going to the stadium

During the COVID-19 pandemic the football club that launched the survey could had the chance to play three games at home with a reduced number of visitors (i.e., 10,000 for the first match, 13,000 for the second match and 300 for the third match). Therefore, the questionnaire asked whether the respondent had been to one of the games in the stadium. If they were not in the stadium, then they were asked what were their reasons for not going to the stadium. A principal component analysis with a KMO value of .792 and Varimax rotation through Kaiser’s method revealed three factors (see Table 3).

Table 3. Principal component analysis of reasons for not going to the stadium.

	COVID-19 pandemic α .869	All fans or no one α .691	No tickets α .296
‘I think if only a few spectators are allowed in the stadium, that lacks the stadium atmosphere (mood, stadium experience)’.	.064	.837	.045
‘Either all fans should be in the stadium or no one’.	.066	.844	.043
‘The hygiene concept has not convinced me’.	.599	.276	.036
‘Because at that time no one was vaccinated’.	.845	.121	.057
‘The incidence value was too high for me’.	.896	.060	.005
‘I generally avoid larger crowds during the pandemic’.	.774	−.079	−.004
‘Because I personally did not feel safe’.	.878	.033	−.006
‘I had no possibilities to get tickets’.	−.225	−.446	.597
‘I didn’t even know that spectators were allowed back in’.	.183	−.002	.630
‘I did not have the possibility to go to the stadium together with friends/family’.	−.037	.198	.688

The COVID-19 pandemic is the only the factor for not going to the stadium that has a high reliability. Therefore, only this factor is used as an independent variable in the following.

The agreement to the factor that the COVID-19 pandemic will keep you from visiting the stadium is particularly high among people who are not club members, not fan club members, or who have a season ticket. But in general, agreement on this factor is rather low (see Table 4).

Table 4. Mean of factor COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 pandemic	All	Club member	Non-club member	Season ticket	No season ticket	Fan club member	No fan club member
Mean	2.41	2.34**	2.71**	2.60**	2.31**	2.31**	2.43**

*p < .05. **p < .01

Assessment of the overall development of professional football

The following items were used for the assessment of the general development in professional football. All of the items were measured on a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree; 5 = strongly agree):

‘I take a very critical view of the increasing commercialization of professional football’.

‘Professional football players don’t know what their own club means to the fans’.

‘For professional football clubs, economic success comes first’.

‘The gap between financially strong and financially weak clubs is increasing alarmingly’.

‘The distance between professional football players and fans has grown in recent years’.

‘The attractiveness of sporting competition in the Bundesliga is declining’.

‘The views of fans are not taken seriously by the clubs in the Bundesliga’.

‘As a fan, I feel that my concerns are taken into account (recoded for analysis)’.

‘The Corona crisis shows that professional football players enjoy a special status in Germany’.

‘Professional football players live in a world of their own’.

A principal component analysis with a KMO value of .905 showed a factor, hereafter referred to as negative development in football, with a high reliability of α .862.

The general agreement with the factor of negative development is rather high. Those who agree particularly strongly are those who are not club members, who have a season ticket or who are fan club members (see Table 5).

Table 5. Mean of factor negative development in football.

Negative development in football	All	Club member	Non-club member	Season ticket	No season ticket	Fan club member	No fan club member
Mean	3.79	3.77**	3.85**	3.90**	3.72**	3.90**	3.76**

*p < .05. **p < .01

Control variables

Control variables were also included in the logistic regression. The first group of variables include whether someone is a club member, owns a season ticket or is a member of a fan club (if ‘yes’, then the dummy variable is always coded with 1). In addition, gender (1 = male; 0 = female), age, and holder of an academic degree were integrated as dummy variables. Holder of an academic degree is defined as someone who has completed a degree at a university or holds a higher degree (PhD). In the dataset, 82.2% are male and 17.8% female. The mean value of age is 43.47 years and the median is 41.0 years. The club has a high number of supporters with an academic qualification: 35.8% hold a university degree.

Additionally, it is interesting to report that, on average, the respondents have been attending the club’s matches regularly since 2001 (median 2003). The earliest year mentioned was 1950. On average, the respondents attend just 10 home matches per season. Likewise, many fans have a long commute to home games. On average, they travel 180 km (median 90 km) to home games.

Empirical results

A logistic regression was calculated, the dependent variable was whether the respondents would not return or might not return to the stadium after the COVID-19 pandemic. Average Marginal Effects (AME) are reported (see Table 6).

Table 6. Logistic regression of the reasons why supports will not come back to the stadium.

	Not coming back AME
Feeling at home before the COVID-19 pandemic	−.032**
Feeling at home during the COVID-19 pandemic	−.063**
COVID-19 pandemic as a reason for not going to the stadium	.049**
Negative development in professional football	.040**
Club member (1 = yes, 0 = no)	.039**
Season ticket holder (1 = yes, 0 = no)	−.000
Fanclub member	−.020**
Ultra	.039*
Academic qualification (1 = university degree, 0 = lower than university degree)	−.000
Gender (1 = male, 0 = female)	−.001*
Age	.001**
N	23,024
Nagelkerkes R^2	.273

*p < .05. **p < .01

Hypothesis 1a (Supporters who felt more at home in their club before the COVID-19 pandemic will be more likely to return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic) is confirmed. This factor explains with 3.2 percentage points why supporters will come back after the COVID-19 pandemic. More important is the factor of feeling at home during the COVID-19 pandemic which explains 6.3 percentage points the depended variable. Hypothesis H1b (Supporters who felt more at home in their club during the COVID-19 pandemic will be more likely to return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic) is therefore also confirmed. Hypothesis 2 (The greater the fear of exposure to the COVID-19 infection, the greater the likelihood that supporters will not return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.) is also confirmed. With 4.9 percentage points, it explains the transition to not coming back to the stadium again. Hypothesis 3 (Supporters who assess the overall development of professional football in a negative way will be more likely to not return to the stadium after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic.) is also confirmed. With 4.0 percentage points, the transition is declared not to come back to the stadium again.

The critical attitude of the Ultras is hardly surprising. Membership of the Ultras describes 3.9 percentage points of not returning to the stadium. What is unexpected is that with the same percentage points, the non-return is also explained by membership in the club. However, bivariate analysis of club membership shows that club members are slightly more likely to want to return to the stadium (see Table 7).

Table 7. Club members coming back into the stadium.

	Coming back to stadium	Not coming back into the stadium
No club member	88.6%	11.4%
Club member	89.8%	10.2%

In contrast, fan club members are much more committed. These members declare to come back to the stadium with 2.0 percentage points. Gender, age, and academic qualification have more or less no influence on the decision to come back to the stadium. Also surprising is the finding that owning a season ticket has no effect on return visits.

Discussion

The results confirm the hypotheses. Interestingly, the factor of ‘feeling at home during COVID-19 pandemic’ has the largest effect size. The period during the pandemic thus had the greatest impact on supporters. The perception of time during the pandemic varies (Table 2): club members are more likely to feel ‘at home’ than non-members. However, season ticket holders and fan club members feel less ‘at home’ than people who do not have a season ticket or are not fan club members. Thus, season ticket holders and fan club members have somewhat lost their ties to the club during the pandemic. For season ticket holders, one explanation could be that season tickets are not only owned by supporters, but also by sponsors, marketing people, or other guests. Additionally, as reported above, some season ticket holders have a longer journey to get to the stadium that they may no longer be willing to take on.

The factor of the overall negative development of professional football has only the third highest effective strength. Thus, the influence of the perception of a negative development is lower than one might assume. Here, it is particularly noteworthy that club members assess the development significantly more positively than non-members (Table 5). The close ties to the club, whose economic and sporting development has been very positive in recent years, leads to a correspondingly more positive assessment of the overall situation. However, it is surprising that club membership in the multivariate analysis leads to an increase in the probability of not returning to the stadium. In contrast, it is clear in the bivariate analysis that club members are more likely to return (Table 7). Further analysis would need to examine this issue in more detail.

Another interesting finding is the fact that season ticket ownership has no influence on return to the stadium. This is probably explained by the fact that season ticket holders also felt less ‘at home’ during the COVID-19 pandemic (Table 2).

Overall, it is noticeable that all factors tend to have a low effect size. This is probably due to the fact that the football supporters surveyed have a strong socialization into the specific culture of this club and therefore do not change their behaviour as much as in other contexts. Therefore, although the factors discussed have an influence on the return to the stadium, this influence is not very high in terms of its effect strength. They are very loyal.

With the help of a very large dataset, we were able to empirically confirm assumptions from the literature about the behaviour of fans, which was rather conceptual, theoretical considerations, or qualitatively empirical.⁶⁰

Limitations

This research has observed several limitations. First, the basic population of the survey includes only the club members, season ticket holders and fan club members of this club and cannot be generalized to other clubs of the Bundesliga or other European football leagues as a whole. Second, the survey took place before a possible return to the stadium. How supporters actually behave can only be measured by their actions when they return to the stadium (or not). Third, only a longitudinal analysis can capture the causal relationships that account for the supporters’ actions. Consequently, a longitudinal survey would have to be conducted in the future.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any grant funding.

Notes

1. Wilkesmann & Wilkesmann, ‘Which Factors Are Associated’.

2. Hammerschmidt et al. 2021, ‘Professional Football Clubs’, 3, table 1.

3. Penfold & Kitchin, ‘Will It Ever Be Completely Safe’.

4. During the rewriting, the club is allowed to sell 67,000 tickets (instead of the 81,000 tickets) due to Covid-19 regulations. A little more than 60,000 tickets were sold, which is unusual, because in previous years every home game was sold out with 81,000 spectators.

5. Woratschek et al., ‘The Sport Value Framework’.

6. Drewes et al., ‘Exploring the Sports Economic Impact’.

7. Ibid., 128.

8. Bond et al., ‘COVID-19: The Return of Football Fans’.

9. Manoli, ‘COVID-19 and the Solidification’.

10. Balda et al., ‘Corona und die Bundesliga’.

11. Horky, ‘No sports, no spectators – no media, no money?’, 98.

12. See note 8.

13. Horky, ‘No sports, no spectators – no media, no money?’, 100.

14. Moore, ‘Football is Not ‘a Matter of Life and Death’.

15. Bond et al., ‘COVID-19: The Return of Football Fans’; Bond et al., ‘COVID-19: The Return of Football Fans’. For an extreme example see also Waliaula & Okong’o ‘The Covid-19 Pandemic and the social life’.

16. Ibid., 3.

17. Ibid., p. 1.

18. At the time the article was written, this was not yet decided.

19. See note 8.

20. Bauers et al., ‘Club Members in German Professional Football’.

21. García & Ramón Llopis-Goig, ‘Supporters’ attitudes towards European football governance’.

22. Wilkesmann & Blutner, ‘Going Public’; Sanchez & Sanchez-Fernandez, ‘Fans in the ownership of Big Five leagues’.

23. Wilkesmann & Blutner, ‘Going Public’; Wilkesmann et al., ‘German Football’.

24. Wilkesmann et al., ‘German Football’.

25. See note 20.

26. Wilkesmann et al., ‘German Football’; Schmidt & Koeningstorfer, ‘Fan Centricity of German Soccer Teams’.

27. Wilkesmann & Blutner, ‘Going Public’.

28. The case examined here is the legal form of a GmbH & Co. KGaA. For a more detailed description of the GmbH & Co. KGaA cf. Wilkesmann & Blutner, ‘Going Public’; Sanchez & Sanchez-Fernandez, ‘Fans in the ownership of Big Five leagues’.

29. Meyer et al., ‘Successful Return’; Schumacher et al., ‘Resuming Professional Football’.

30. Castagna et al., ‘Considerations and Best Practices’.

31. Mohr et al., ‘Return to Elite Football’.

32. Dergaa et al., ‘Organising Football Matches’.

33. Bond et al., ‘COVID-19: The Return of Football Fans’; Drewes et al., ‘Exploring the Sports Economic Impact’; Manoli, ‘COVID-19 and the Solidification’.

34. Gouveia & Pereira, ‘Professional Football in Portugal’.

35. Reade & Singleton, ‘European Football After COVID-19’.

36. See note 9.

37. Reade and Singleton, ‘Demand for Public Events’.

38. Reade et al., ‘Stadium Attendance Demand’.

39. Ibid.; Reade & Singleton, ‘European Football After COVID-19’; Boyko et al., ‘Referee Bias Contributes’.

40. See note 34.

41. Sanchez & Lavin, ‘Home advantage’.

42. Wunderlich et a., ‘How does spectator presence affect football?’.

43. See note 14.

44. Giulianotti, ‘Supporters, followers, fans, and flaneurs’.

45. Jaeger, ‘Football fans’.

46. Taylor, ‘Football mad’; Davis, ‘Football fandom’.

47. Dixon, ‘Learning the game’.

48. Sandvoss, ‘A game of two halves’, 19.

49. Kerr & Wijeratne, ‘Taking the Pulse’.

50. Schmidt & Koenigstorfer, ‘Fan Centricity of German Soccer Teams’.

51. Ibid.

52. Bond et al., ‘COVID-19: The Return of Football Fans’, 1.

53. See note 50.

54. Bresemann & Duttler, ‘Divided in Colours’; Kathöfer & Kotthaus, ‘Block X–Unter Ultras’.

55. Knijnik & Newson, ‘“Tribalism”, identity fusion and football fandom’.

56. Cocieru et al., ‘It’s Our Club!’.

57. Reade et al., ‘Stadium Attendance Demand’; Reade & Singleton, ‘Demand for Public Events’.

58. The Guardian, 27 April 2021.

59. Wilkesmann, ‘Geld schießt Tore?‘; Wilkesmann, ‘Fußball und die soziale Ungleichheit‘.

60. Bond et al., ‘COVID-19: The Return of Football Fans’; Schmidt & Koeningstorfer, ‘Fan Centricity of German Soccer Teams’; Kerr & Wijeratne, ‘Taking the Pulse’.