Uncertainty of outcome, team quality or star players? What drives TV audience demand for UEFA Champions League football?

Research Question This is the first article to empirically examine what drives TV audience demand for the UEFA Champions League (UCL) in major European markets. It then asks: How well does the tournament structure meet the preferences of TV viewers? Research Methods The article analyses the UCL from 2013/14–2018/19, considering TV viewing figures for all televised games from the group stages through to the finals in six nations – France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and the UK. It then analyses match data in the UCL since its most recent tournament restructure in 2003/04, along with Ballon d’Or results and UEFA Club Coefficient rankings, to assess the efficiency of the current tournament structure. Results and findings Uncertainty of outcome is not significantly associated with the size of TV audiences for the UCL, but both the presence of star players and team quality are. However, analysis of match data reveals that the current structure of the UCL does not maximise the number of star players or top clubs that progress to the latter stages of the tournament. Implications These findings enable UEFA and other sport competition organisers to make evidence-informed decisions about how to structure competitions, while balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders. They also contribute to the small but growing body of empirical work that seeks to identify the key drivers of TV demand for sport – increasingly the dominant form of revenue for many sport organisations.