Factors influencing attendance of ice hockey games in Sweden

Commercialization of sport has been growing since 80s and club owners tend to pay more and more attention not just to cups and titles but to commercial success as well. Nevertheless, fans are still the key source of revenues. Besides direct spending while attending games popular clubs and crowded stadiums grab attention of generous advertisers. That is why the problem of sports attendance becomes more and more important though ice hockey attendance is still not the most popular topic among sports marketing researchers. The majority of them cover Canada and the United States while European leagues suffer from the lack of studies as much bigger attention is paid to sport number one – soccer. In the same time, Sweden is one of the few countries in the world where ice hockey might be as popular as soccer. Swedish ice hockey league is one of the strongest in the world but still many clubs fail to sell out their arenas at every game. So the main purpose of this research is to identify factors that influence attendance of ice hockey games in Sweden and reveal their impact on attendance. The analysis is conducted using quantitative methods, where econometrical and statistical approaches are primary tools. In order to test factors influencing attendance a multiple regression model was set up. The dataset was compiled using secondary data and consisted of 1317 regular season ice hockey matches played during 4 seasons (from 2008/2009 to 2011/2012) of the top Swedish ice hockey league called Elitserien. The main sources for compiling the dataset were game reports provided by Swedish Ice Hockey Association and Elitserien. The present study has shown that several factors have strongly positive effect on attendance. Scheduling (games on Friday, Saturday and during Christmas holidays) and rivalry are the most important factors that bring crowds to arenas. Moreover, it can be concluded that higher prices do not affect attendance negatively and clubs can slightly increase ticket prices to improve match day revenues. Finally, on-ice violence attracts Swedish fans while opposite trend exists in North America.