Demand for football and intramatch winning probability: an essay on the glorious uncertainty of sports

The aims of this study are (i) to identify the main determinants of the demand for French Premiere Division football matches using all matches played during the 1997/1998 season, (ii) to estimate a team-specific probability of success, and (iii) to propose an updating process for the intramatch winning probability. The methodology is tested empirically over an out-of-sample data set using matches of the 1998/1999 season. The results show that football appears to be an inferior product affected by both socio-economic and football variables, and that the main football variables have only a tenuous explanatory power concerning the final outcome of a given match.