05.07.2021

On Club Members’ Voting Behaviour in Professional Football

5.7.2021 – Dennis Coates (University of Maryland Baltimore County), Marcel Fahrner, and Tim Pawlowski (both Institute of Sports Science) publish results of a study examining for the first time club members’ voting behaviour in professional football.

Using survey data of more than 9,000 members of a professional football club in Germany, Dennis Coates (University of Maryland Baltimore County), Marcel Fahrner, and Tim Pawlowski (both Institute of Sports Science) explore whether factors found to influence turnout to political elections are also relevant in the peculiar setting of member-strong football clubs. Given the geographically widespread distribution of members, a particular focus is put on the relevance of travel distance to the meeting place.

Overall, the study provides some evidence of temporal consistency and setting independency for the factors associated with voter turnout. At the same time, it illustrates a practically highly relevant case where statistical and economic significance of a variable differ. Since the effect of distance between one’s home and the meeting place is comparably small, online voting or voting by mail might have little impact on turnout in practice.

The research paper was recently accepted for publication in the European Sport Management Quarterly.

Reference: Coates, D., Fahrner, M., & Pawlowski, T. (2021). Decision-making in professional football: An empirical analysis of club members’ voting behaviour. European Sport Management Quarterly, https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2021.1939396