TV demand for the Italian Serie A: star power or competitive intensity?

This article investigates the determinants of television audience for Italian Serie A football matches between 2012/13 - 2014/15 seasons (n=1079) using the AUDIBALL dataset. Specifically, we investigate the role of competitive intensity (CI) on TV demand by adapting a measure to incorporate both home and away teams competing for different prizes. Although we find significant positive impacts for all our CI indicators, our conclusion differs from previous work as the coefficients are small. Additionally, our results indicate a significant negative impact of uncertainty-of-outcome, supporting the "David vs Goliath" effect. Finally, our results show a significant positive impact from star quality suggesting Serie A should focus on star quality rather than competitive intensity.