Football Frenzy: The Effect of the 2011 World Cup on Women's Professional Soccer League Attendance

Abstract

The dramatic play of the American team in the 2011 Women's World Cup tournament brought much attention to women's soccer in the United States. This article uses match-level data from the Women's Professional Soccer (WPS) league to analyze the effect of the World Cup on WPS attendance. The results indicate that attendance for matches played after the World Cup roughly doubled and that matches involving star players Hope Solo and Abby Wambach received an additional 33% attendance bump although this effect is imprecisely estimated. © The Author(s) 2013.