Will the real fans please remain seated? Gender and television ratings for pre-game and game broadcasts

• This study examines how television audience composition varies by gender for pre-game and game broadcasts.
• Our findings support the previously held notion of how female pre-game viewership may be used to establish veritable fan status.
• Determinants of intra-match viewership are then analyzed via a series of regression models, with more of the variance explained as games progress.
• We compare the resulting coefficient estimates of demand determinants for each gender and discuss both the similarities and differences found between female and male fans.

Previous analysis of fan motivation suggests a number of differences exist in the sport spectatorship of female and male fans, however discrepancies are present in the collective findings. We extend the literature by drawing on sport economic demand research, testing how specific game characteristics influence consumption patterns for each gender. Through the examination of NCAA football game broadcasts, our results support the importance of female pre-game viewership to establish fan status. By contrast, among the many variables tested, gendered-differences in the impact on game viewership are evident only with respect to income and local team participation. Moreover, we do not find differences related to anticipated or actual game competitiveness. We conclude that within game viewership patterns are essentially similar for female and male fans and offer thoughts regarding the practical implications of this research.