Team Visibility and City Travel: Evidence From the UEFA Champions' League Random Draw

Does hosting a sports team boost the visibility of a city among tourists? I test this proposition by looking at the effect of playing soccer’s UEFA Champions' League on air travel. I compare routes across cities that had their teams randomly drawn into the same group in the first phase of the c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of sports economics Vol. 22; no. 1; pp. 85 - 114
Main Author Caprettini, Bruno
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.01.2021
SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
Subjects
Air travel
Teams
air travel
natural experiment
football
team visibility
UEFA Champions' League
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Summary:Does hosting a sports team boost the visibility of a city among tourists? I test this proposition by looking at the effect of playing soccer’s UEFA Champions' League on air travel. I compare routes across cities that had their teams randomly drawn into the same group in the first phase of the competition to routes across cities hosting teams randomly allocated to different groups. The average effect of being drawn into the same group is between 5% and 8% more arrivals for the 3 months following the group stage, a period which coincides with a break in the competition. The first appearance of a team in the competition has a larger impact on air travel, providing suggesting evidence of diminishing returns of exposure.
ISSN:1527-0025
1552-7794
DOI:10.1177/1527002520955208