The Importance of Away Fans to a Club’s Market Size and its Effect on Competitive Balance

Abstract

A club’s market size is not equivalent to its fan-base because the club collects gate receipts from fans affiliated to rival clubs, and thus indirectly shares its revenue source with other clubs. We trace the spending of individual fans and found that clubs with a smaller fan-base benefits more from the spending of away fans, allowing them to hire better playing talents and reduce the performance gap against clubs with larger fan-base.