Match Experience at the Danish Women’s Soccer National A-Team Matches: An Explorative Study

Abstract

Women’s soccer is more popular than ever, but match attendance is still relatively low. In order to develop sustainable revenue streams for women’s football, and help it grow further, it is necessary to understand what drives spectator’s overall demand. We explore factors that affect the overall match experience for spectators (i.e., spectator satisfaction) attending Danish women’s national soccer A-team games in the 2016 to 2019 period as a proxy for this. Using survey data gathered by the Danish Football Association (DBU) consisting of 4010 individuals and 13 matches, coupled with other match-specific data, we employ multilevel regression modelling. The results at the individual level suggest that female spectators are significantly more content with the overall match experience, while several additional factors are also important at the match-specific level, such as kick-off time and the result. Furthermore, there are indications that match significance and derby matches affect overall match experience. An important implication of these results is that they can aid national and international federations and other governing bodies in promoting women’s soccer in general, and women’s national A-team soccer specifically, in order to help the sport to become more financially viable. Although numerous initiatives have been designed to increase the attractiveness of women’s soccer, these are yet to materialize into long-term effects.