The Demand for International Football Telecasts in the United States

This book provides a comprehensive overview and economic analysis of US consumer demand for televised football (soccer). Accounting for transnational demand, research is focused on the US consumers demand for the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1 and the UEFA Champions League, which represent the most popular and marketable football competitions worldwide, and have recently sealed lucrative media rights contracts in many large markets, including the US. The study also takes account of North American Major League Soccer (MLS) in order to provide a more comprehensive overview of the country's football market and to allow for direct comparisons with the aforementioned European competitions.

These findings offer valuable insights for US broadcasters, European league organizers and managers to adjust existing strategies and/or develop new strategies in conquering the US football market.

Georgios Nalbantis is Research Assistant in the Department for Sport Economics, Sport Management and Media Research, at the University of Tübingen, Germany. His research interests include the economics of league competitions as well as the econometric analysis of sports demand and regulations of sport systems. He was supported by the João Havelange Research Scholarship of FIFA / CIES and has co-authored papers that have appeared in Applied Economics and Journal of Sports Economics.

Tim Pawlowski is Professor for Sport Economics (Chair in Sport Economics, Sport Management and Media Research) at the University of Tübingen, Germany. His research is focused on the economics of league competitions and the econometric analysis of sports demand, as well as the financing of sport systems; and was supported with research grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG), UEFA and FIFA. He is one of the founding members of the European Sport Economics Association (ESEA), has published widely across international journals and was principal investigator in research projects (amongst others) for the Federal Ministry of Finance in Germany and Major League Soccer (MLS).