24.02.2026
New publication in the Journal of Sports Economics
Researchers from Tübingen reveal biases in decision-making of football fans during ticket purchases.
By merging fine-grained association football (soccer) ticket data with detailed weather information, Michal Kowalik and Tim Pawlowski present a novel setting to test projection bias in the field. Since football fans must verify their identity for both ticket purchase and stadium entry, they are able to explore the effect of interest at the individual level.
Overall, the findings suggest that intertemporal decision-making by sports consumers is indeed systematically biased. Warmer (than expected) weather at the time of purchase reduces the likelihood of stadium attendance, while higher (than expected) precipitation and longer (than expected) sunshine duration increases this likelihood. Moreover, they offer some initial evidence in line with the literature on hedonic consumption, since decision-making by women seems to be stronger affected by weather compared to men.
Kowalik, M., & Pawlowski, T. (2026). Projection bias in individual football ticket purchases. Journal of Sports Economics. Online first at https://doi.org/10.1177/15270025261422471
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