The Factors Influencing Fans’ Attendance at Football Matches in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

This quantitative study investigates factors that affect fans' attendance at football stadiums to watch Saudi Premier League (SPL) football matches. We adopted the comparative quantitative research method to compare the significance of the factors, which affect fans' attendance at the football stadiums. Data was collected through a questionnaire. The research was carried out on a sample of 1,506 participants. The factors which have the most effect on fans' attendance are the facilities and services offered by the stadiums and the fact that the seats are not numbered. However, in the case of SPL, external factors have the most impact on the fans' lack of attendance at stadiums in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) including the fact that the matches are televised and the lack of commitment of fans to their favourite teams of SPL. This research also concludes that SPL organisers need to add glamour to SPL events by associating the branding of the league with overseas sporting brands, thereby attracting male fans to these events and improving fan attendance through the use of televised media and online and social media, which would help increase accessibility to fans.

The association between Saudi football clubs and the loyalty of their fanbase, a cross-sectional study.

“…In this study the findings showing that the majority of the fans (50.8%) have attended the football matches in the stadium while only 23.7% of the total participants in the study stated that their favorite way to watch their team is by attending to the stadiums, this percentage is a huge in relation to a previous study done by Binjwaied et. al, (2015) which stated that only 1.9% of Saudi football fans prefer to watch the matches in the stadiums.…”

“…Although another previous study by Plumley and Flint (2015) addressed the imbalance distribution of the clubs in the competition of UEFA champions league and the effect of placing the teams in the groups reflect on the performance in the competition and therefore on their revenues as each team allocate more money prize as they proceed in the competition, in the same paper advised that the fair grouping of the clubs is a must in order to make a fair distribution. Fans are the soul of the football and the factors that influence them to attend the football matches in Saudi Arabia have been investigated in a quantitative study done by Binjwaied et al (2015) as the results showed that the most factors were related to the infrastructure of football facilities and the services at them as their study showed that 55.4% of the participants would never attend a football match in the stadium.…”

“…In question how often you share media related to your favorite club through your social media account? The number of respondents chose the option Occasionally 1414 was 61%, while the number of responses to Only big event media was 494 with a rate of 21.3%, and finally, the number of respondents who sharing the media related to their club every time is 409 by 17 The number of no respondents was 1137, at a rate of 49.1%, while the number of those who answered yes was 797, at a rate of 34.4%, and finally, the number of respondents to Yes, this is my duty as a fan of my team was 383, at a rate of 16.5%.…”

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“…The economics of football analyze the behavior of consumers (fans) and producers (clubs). Examples of studies focusing on fans/spectators include Abdel-Naby Ibrahim (2014), Binjwaied et al (2015), Borges (2018), Desbordes (2020, 2021), Harasta (2021), Özgen andArgan (2017), andPfeffel et al (2017).…”

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“…Similarly, a number of studies have used the various aspects of developing a new trend; that of e-sports-see Robeers and Van Den Bulck (2018), Lemcke and Weh (2018) and Wewer (2018). Binjwaied et al (2015) examine the factors which affect the attendance of football matches in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. They conclude that the role of media is important in attracting more fans such as via televised media, online coverage and social media.…”