Stadium Attendance Demand During the Covid-19 Crisis: Early Empirical Evidence from Belarus

Written by:

J. James Reade

University of Reading, Department of Economics

Dominik Schreyer

WHU – Otto Beisheim School of Management

Carl Singleton

Department of Economics, University of Reading

In this note, we explore the patterns in stadium attendance demand during a public health emergency, by exploiting match-level data from the Belarusian Premier League (BPL); i.e., a football competition that, unlike all other European professional football leagues, kept playing unrestricted in front of spectators throughout the global COVID-19 pandemic. We observe that stadium attendance demand in Belarus declined significantly in the initial period of maximum uncertainty. Surprisingly, demand then slowly recovered, despite the ongoing inherent risk to individuals from going to a match.

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