Does Location Matter? An Econometric Analysis of Stadium Location and Attendance at National Women’s Soccer League Matches

Abstract

This study examines the impact of stadium locations on attendance in the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL). We develop a match-level attendance model incorporating control variables such as market factors and consumer preferences to assess attendance for NWSL games. Our results indicate that attendance drops the further an NWSL stadium is from the city center. Specifically, the coefficients suggest an inverse relationship between attendance at NWSL matches and the distance to the city center, indicating that for every mile further an NWSL team was from the city center, attendance declined by about 6.6%. Our findings show that some of the perceived differences in demand for women’s soccer may be due to infrastructural inequalities such as stadium locations. Therefore, one way to boost demand and attendance in professional women’s sport, specifically soccer, is to move away from suburban stadiums and toward downtown locations.