The market potential of a club as an indicator for the size of a new …users.telenet.be/trudo.dejonghe/pdf/ghent.pdf · 2010-01-16 · tion of the Cristal Alken Arena of KRC Genk,

193BELGEO • 2008 • 2

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ABSTRACT In many cities throughout Europe sport has been used as a tool for economic regener-ation. In the case of the Belgian city Gent we can ask ourselves the question whetherthat strategy is or is not going to be used. Gent is already an important university cen-tre, harbour, tourist centre and industrial city and the new sport infrastructure, such asan indoor athletic arena, an indoor velodrome, a top sports school and hotel and in thenearby future the «Artevelde football stadium» are located in areas that did not need anyform of regeneration. The reason for building a new football stadium can be explainedby looking at the location of the old stadium. The «Ottenstadium» is located in a dense-ly populated neighbourhood and the local residents have to face negative spill-overeffects. The city of Gent is the owner of the grounds and categorized the stadium as alocally unwanted land use. The local government already bought the old stadium for 3.5million euro and will convert it into a new residential neighbourhood. The club and Gent are dovetailing this project with a growth strategy for KAA Gent andit can be considered as a form of community self-esteem, creating a local identity andtopophilia. The club had an average attendance of 8,000 and a lot of football fans havebeen taking the main highway E40 to Bruges (FC Bruges) and to a lesser extent toBrussel (SC Anderlecht).The KAA Chairman aims to increase attendances to a stable11,000 to 12,000 people.The place of Gent in the urban system is that of a regional city with high centrality. Thismeans that consumer-oriented services with a high threshold, such as a professionalfootball team, reach their threshold in the city. In the case of professional football a func-tional substitution has taken place and the top team is located in Brugge The servicearea of Bruges reaches almost up to Gent and the E40 highway reduces the time-dis-tance. The new location of the stadium is near the main highway and away from Lokeren,the location of another first division team with which KAA at one time wanted to merge.Dejonghe (2001; 2004c) already noticed that travelling «across» a city to visit a stadiumis a psychological barrier , which means that in case of a merger the fans of SC Lokerenwill ignore the new team. The location of the Artevelde stadium is also away from its localfan base and can in the long term result in declining attendances.

KEY WORDS: Gent, local identity, sport city, relocation, functional substitution, servicearea, Artevelde stadium, market potential, consumer oriented service, spatial competition

194 The market potential of a club as an indicator for the size of a new relocated football arena

RÉSUMÉLLEE PPOOTTEENNTTIIEELL MMAARRCCHHAANNDD DD''UUNN CCLLUUBB CCOOMMMMEE IINNDDIICCAATTEEUURR DDEE LLAA TTAAIILLLLEE DD''UUNNSSTTAADDEE DDEE FFOOOOTT RRÉÉCCEEMMMMEENNTT DDÉÉLLOOCCAALLIISSÉÉ:: LLEE CCAASS DDUU KKAAAA GGEENNTTDans nombre de villes à travers l'Europe, le sport a été utilisé comme instrument derégénération économique. Dans le cas de la ville belge de Gand, nous pouvons nousdemander si cette stratégie sera ou non d’application. Gand est déjà un importantcentre universitaire, un port, un centre touristique ainsi qu'une ville industrielle, et lesnouvelles infrastructures sportives (stade d'athlétisme et vélodrome couverts, école desport de haut niveau, hôtel, et bientôt le stade de football Artevelde) sont situées dansdes zones ne nécessitant aucune forme de régénération. La raison de la constructiond'un nouveau stade de foot peut s'expliquer par rapport à la localisation de l'ancienstade, le «Ottenstadium». Celui-ci est en effet situé dans un quartier très peuplé, et lesrésidents subissent des retombées négatives. La ville de Gand, propriétaire du terrain,a classé le stade comme localement indésirable du point de vue de l’utilisation du sol etle gouvernement local en a déjà fait l'acquisition pour la somme de 3,5 millions d'euroen vue d’une reconversion en quartier résidentiel.Le club et et la Ville de Gand font concorder ce projet avec une stratégie de croissan-ce pour le KAA Gent, une démarche dans laquelle on peut voir une forme d'estime desoi communautaire, génératrice d'identité locale et de topophilie. Le club recevait enmoyenne un public de 8000 personnes, dont beaucoup ont pris l'autoroute E40 versBruges (FC Bruges) et, dans une moindre mesure, vers Bruxelles (SC Anderlecht). LePrésident du club souhaiterait stabiliser son public autour de 11 à 12000 personnes.La place de Gand dans le système urbain est celle d'une ville régionale à haute centra-lité. Ceci signifie que les services orientés vers le consommateur et présentant un seuilélevé – telle une équipe de foot professionnelle – atteignent ce seuil dans la ville même.Dans le cas du football professionnel, une substitution des fonctions s'est produite, etl'équipe de tête est située à Bruges. L'aire de services de Bruges s'étend pratiquementjusqu'à Gand, et l'autoroute E40 réduit la distance-temps. La nouvelle localisation dustade est proche de l'autoroute principale et assez éloignée de Lokeren, berceau d'uneautre équipe de première division avec laquelle KAA Gent a voulu fusionner voici un cer-tain temps. Dejonghe (2001, 2004c) a déjà souligné que le fait de devoir «traverser» uneville pour rejoindre un stade constitue une barrière psychologique, ce qui signifie qu'encas de fusion les fans du SC Lokeren se désintéresseront de la nouvelle équipe. Lasituation du stade Artevelde est également éloignée de sa base locale de supporters etpourrait, à long terme, entraîner une baisse de la fréquentation.

MOTS-CLÉS: Gand, identité locale, ville sportive, relocalisation, substitution fonctionnel-le, aire de services, stade Artevelde, potentiel marchand, services orientés vers leconsommateur, compétition spatiale

Agrowing number of post-industrialcities are using sport as a brand

(Smith, 2005). These cities and regionswant to present an attractive and progres-sive image to potential tourists, externalcapital providers and other businessesand consumers that are looking for acompetitive location. The use of sport tofurther their reputation and to give a newimage to a city is a recent process where-by a local government, either alone or in aPublic Private Cooperation, deliberatelyexploits sport to modify its image. Placesare nowadays commodities that are com-peting with one another for a share of theinward investment and many cities haveattempted to present themselves asentertainment centres by providing a mixof spectacles and sport. In this article wewill focus us on the sport related tenden-

cies to build new stadiums located near-by the main roads as a new form of land-marks in the geomarketing of aregion/city.In our case the city of Gent with a popula-tion of approximately 233,000 in theprovince of Eastern Flanders with 1.4 mil-lion inhabitants has been using sportalready for a long time as a vehicle for citymarketing. Since 2000 it has been thelocation of the only indoors athletic hall inBelgium, a rowing track, an «old» tradi-tional indoor cycling centre and a newone opened in 2006 near the indoor ath-letics hall, a house of sport, an elite sportschool... and probably in 2009, a newmodern multifunctional football arena forthe local professional football club KAAGent as a landmark besides the mainhighways E40 and R4.

195BELGEO • 2008 • 2

IINNTTRROODDUUCCTTIIOONN

Figure 1. The location of Gent.Source: http://www.destoop.be/images/kaart_vlaanderen.gif

At the moment Belgium has, with excep-tion of the Cristal Alken Arena of KRCGenk, in comparison with our neighbour-ing countries England, Germany, Franceand the Netherlands an outdated footballinfrastructure insufficiently adapted tocurrent consumer needs (Dejonghe,2007). Until the 90s the financial structureof professional football in Belgium was, asin most of the other European countries,what Andreff & Staudohar (2002) referredto as the traditional Spectator-Subsidies-Sponsors-Local or SSSL-model. The mainsources of revenues of the clubs wereticketing, local subsidies and local spon-sors. The changing structure and environ-ment of European professional footballforced the major clubs and leagues tochange their structures to a more encom-passing Media-Corporations-Merchandis-ing-Markets model (MCMMG-model). Theclubs and leagues became a broadereconomic product with broadcasting

rights and sponsorship as the mainsources of income(1). Professional footballhas, as stated in Dejonghe (2001), beentransformed to a person-related immateri-al consumer oriented service with an eco-nomic function. The central product is thesport game «an sich» but some other fac-tors such as a crowded, modern, all seat-ed stadium without fences or uncoveredparts can have a positive contribution tothe product as a whole (Dejonghe, 2007).The absence of a demand oriented foot-ball infrastructure means a potential lossof revenues. Some examples of theselosses are the limitation in increasing theticket prices, a capacity constraint, lack ofinsufficient business seats and boxes, arepulsion of women and children andhigher income sport consumers, a lack ofbranding the facility(2)... Dejonghe (2004a) states that moderniz-ing or building new sports facilities canchange the reference price for the con-

The place of Gent in the urban system isthat of a regional city with a high centrali-ty (Van Hecke,1998). This means thatconsumer-oriented services with a highthreshold, such as a professional footballteam easily can easily survive in the Gentregion. In the case of KAA Gent, the pro-fessional team in Gent, however a func-tional substitution has taken place and thetop team, Club Brugge KV located in anearby smaller and hierarchical lowercentre Brugge (115.500 inhabitants),replaced KAA Gent in the professionalfootball hierarchy. Nowadays KAA Gentplays in the «Jules Otten stadium» with12,919 seats for an average attendanceover the last five seasons of 8,000-8,900spectators. The club has decided to relo-cate to a new stadium with a capacity of20,000 seats located nearby the mainhighways. In this article we will use thesocial upgrading of professional footballand the need of an accessible, moderninfrastructure adapted to the needs ofsport consumers and its market potentialas the main reasons for the relocation. We

will investigate the service area and themarket potential of KAA Gent in its newlybuilt and relocated facility of 20,000 seats.To do so, we will use the data of the sea-son 2006/07 of all the professional footballclubs in the first division that have a spa-tial interaction with KAA Gent. These datawill be integrated in a theoretical frame-work of a location-allocation model to lookfor cities and communities in the servicearea of the club that can be «worked» onby the marketing and management divi-sion of the club to attract higher atten-dances. The final result is an estimation ofthe average market potential of atten-dances in the future and can be used byconsumer oriented professional sportclubs as an indicator for the necessarycapacity of their stadium. The questionsthat will be answered are: Is the relocationof KAA Gent an example of the recent ten-dencies of relocation of sport stadiums?And Is the capacity of the new stadiumsufficient to answer the potential demandof the sport consumers?


TTHHEE NNEEWW PPRROOFFEESSSSIIOONNAALL EENNVVIIRROONNMMEENNTT FFOORR FFOOOOTTBBAALLLL SSTTAA--DDIIUUMMSS;; FFRROOMM SSPPOORRTT FFAANNSS TTOO SSPPOORRTT CCOONNSSUUMMEERRSS

sumer and make it acceptable to buy theproduct. In most of the Dutch and Englishcases the stadium was sold out during theseasons previous to the relocation or ren-ovation. This means that the demand forattending the club was higher than thesupply of seats, in other words, the priceof the tickets was lower than the equilibri-um price in a free market system. Theclubs can, if they have a notion of the sur-plus in demand, raise the prices in theirnew stadiums. In this case it is not achange in consumer behaviour but onlyan adjustment to the free market. It is inthose cases that the «ghost» of localidentity is emerging. A raise in prices canresult in a crowding out of the originalhardcore urban working class fan base(see the Manchester United case afterGlazer took over the club and raised theprices. Some 4,000 fans founded a newteam FC United of Manchester and theclub plays in the amateur league for acrowd of 3,000 (Porter, 2005)). Theirsporting club give its members most ofthe time an inter-generational, sub-cultur-al marker of identity and gives them aform of what is called «Topophilia», theties that combine emotion and place(Bale, 1991; Nielsen, 1995; Mac Clancy,1996; Duke & Crolley,1996; Dejonghe2004b). Not only may the ticket prices goup, all of this may also issue in anincrease in revenue from catering, mer-chandising and possibly rent from otheruses of the facility such as concerts, par-ties, hotels...In economic geography and spatial econ-omy an explanation of location behaviourof an economic activity is a central theme.The location and competition in spaceand visibility become a central issue inconsumer oriented services. Professionalfootball became a service that had to sellitself in space. Like all consumer-orientedservices is time-distance an importantdeterminant of demand besides issuessuch as comfort, visibility and marketpotential. Long term success in profes-sional football is, according to Dejonghe(2001), a principle of cumulative causa-tion with service area and potential con-sumers with their purchasing power as acentral topic in the system. Sponsors are

looking for clubs with a long term successand a great amount of potential con-sumers and/or large service areas. King(1998)(3) argued that as Fordism wasreplaced by post-Fordism a new style ofconsumption of football was stimulated. Ashift from football «fandom» to football«consumption» took place. Viewers areconsuming the game as a total productand want to have a pleasant experience.The result was a mixed composition of thevisitors of a football game in a modernenvironment and an increase in the aver-age number of attendances. This transfor-mation is partly confirmed by researchabout the demand for league football.Bird (1982) noticed a negative price elas-ticity between football consumption andthe price of the tickets for the period1950-1977 and Szymanski & Smith (1997)came to the same conclusions for theperiod 1974-1989. Bird (1982) also founda negative income elasticity. The lattermeans that football was in that period aninferior good. As income increases , con-sumers tended to give up attending foot-ball and consumed perhaps more social-ly upgraded leisure activities. After theHillsborough disaster(4) in England theTaylor Report was published in 1990 andrecommended that all stadiums had to beconverted into all-seating grounds andalcohol, barriers and fences within thestadium have to be removed. This con-version improved the image of the gameand the attendances in the highest divi-sion, now called «Premier League»,increased from 8 million in 1991/92 to 13million in 2006/07(5). In the period 1992-97 Dobson e.a. (2001) noticed a positiveprice elasticity after the implementation ofthe Taylor Report recommendations inEnglish football. Feehan e.a. (2003) com-pared social class of the football fan withthe social composition of the area sur-rounding the football grounds and con-cluded that on average a higher numberof the higher income groups came to thestadium. This means that football was,because of the modern infrastructure,transformed from an inferior good to anormal good and became an acceptableleisure activity for people with higherincomes. The increasing commercializa-

197BELGEO • 2008 • 2

The European Championship of nationalteams - which Belgium organized togeth-er with the Netherlands in 2000 (Euro2000) – was not used in Belgium as aleverage for modernising football facili-ties. The building of the «Artevelde stadi-um» in Gent can be seen as a firstattempt. Recent demands byClubBruggeKV, RSC Anderlecht andStandard Luik, who have potential lossesbecause of capacity and other con-straints, and the demand for modern mul-tifunctional stadium in other cities such asAntwerp, Waregem and Mechelen tomention some, makes scientific researchof the viability necessary. One of the main reasons to relocate KAAGent was that the «Ottenstadium» gener-ates, like in most cases that have been

investigated (Bale,1980; 1990; 1993; 1994;Black & Lloyd, 1992; Mason & Moncrieff,1993; Van Dam, 1996, 1998; Ghomley,1998; Termont, 2004), negative externali-ties on the surrounding area and the stadi-um became as Van Dam (1998, p. 28) putit a «Locally Unwanted Land Use». VanDam (2000) explains these externalities bythe simple fact that the local base of clubsbecame diluted and supporters were, as aresult of suburbanisation and rising carownership, recruited from further and fur-ther away. The Otten stadium, built in 1920and renewed in the 1980s, is a typicalexample of a stadium that was once locat-ed outside the city. Today the stadium islocated in a residential area with a lack ofparking places. On match days people liv-ing in the vicinity of the stadium experiencenuisances from parked cars, traffic, noise,

tion of football made a widening of thepotential group of consumers necessary.This means an orientation towards fami-lies as a whole because women and chil-dren are very important to sponsors andpotential sponsors, because they exert animportant influence over consumerspending patterns in families. Recentlywe notice that traditional English teamsare leaving their «holy home grounds»and refocus on a new modern multifunc-tional sometimes branded stadium with ahigher capacity. Some recent examplesare Manchester City that left Main Road(35,150 seats) in 2003 and removed tothe City of Manchester Stadium that wasbuilt for the Commonwealth Games of2002 and has a capacity of 47,726. In2006 Arsenal left Highbury Park (38,500seats) for a sold-out Emirates Stadiumwith a capacity of 60,432, FC Liverpoolwill in the near future leave Anfield Road(45,400 seats) for a new stadium with acapacity of 60,000.In Germany the organisation of the WorldCup 2006 was the engine which set intomotion the building of new or the renova-tion of older stadiums. Feddersen e.a.

(2006) noticed a novelty effect, anincrease in attendances in those facilitiesbut an existing « capacity restraint» in theold or not renovated grounds was anadditional advantage. In The Netherlandsall stadiums of the clubs in the Eredivisiehave been newly built or renovated after1993. The average attendances rose from10,000 in 1993/94 to 17,800 in 2006/07.One of the main topics was the marketpotential of the club in its region. In somecases there is even a, what Clapp &Hakes (2005) and Coates & Humpreys(2005) called a «honeymoon effect»which means that if there is a new stadi-um, people will come in larger groups andfrequent it more the first three years afterits opening than for the rest of the stadi-um's lifetime. This was the case inPortugal were Boavista Porto, Lieria, BeiraMar Aveiro and Coimbra got a new stadi-um with capacities around 30,000 butthey managed to draw in between 2,500and 6,000 spectators only. The result isthat, with exception of Braga which hasan average attendance of 11,000, allother teams have already noticed a dropin their attendances to their former levels.


TTHHEE CCAASSEE OOFF KKAAAA GGEENNTT:: AA RREELLOOCCAATTIIOONN FFRROOMM AA HHIISSTTOORRIICCAALLOOTTTTEENN SSTTAADDIIUUMM TTOO AA MMUULLTTIIFFUUNNCCTTIIOONNAALL AARRTTEEVVEELLDDEE SSTTAADDIIUUMM

vandalism, pubs, litter and other forms ofanti-social behaviour.The Otten stadium itself has some draw-backs as well. The facility consists of fourseparated stands which results in lesscontact between the supporters after thegame and the catering facility is too smallso that the club loses extra revenue.Another negative characteristic is the sta-dium's location. The stadium is surround-ed by houses and located away from themain road so that branding the facility orusing it as a landmark is impossible. Onlythe pubs in the vicinity of the footballground will have a disadvantage in casethe relocation takes place. The move ofthe club will result in a loss of income onmatch days and maybe force some ofthem into closure. Finally, relocation mayweaken the link between the club and thelocal community. The feasibility of football stadiums is mostof the time utopian and a good coordina-tion with the local, regional or nationalgovernment is necessary. The total invest-ment is bigger than the amount of incomethat can be generated through exploita-tion. This means that just like in the cultur-al world, the infrastructure has an unre-munerative top and should be built andsustained in cooperation with and supportof the public sector or a private financier(Vander Veen & Van Wijhe, 2002;Mosterman, 2004; Van Mierlo, 2005).Eckstein & Delaney (2002) noticed thatafter calculation of the economic benefitsof stadiums most of the time little eco-nomic advantages for the local communi-ties could be proved. The supporters of anew stadium modified their tactics. Theyinsist on the more intangible social bene-fits such as community «self esteem» orcollective conscience. This means that,like in most of the cases, KAA Gentlooked for support in the private and pub-lic sector. The main stakeholders in thedecision-making process for the reloca-tion to a new stadium were the club andthe city of Gent. The fans of the team hadno impact on the decision and the argu-ment of capacity constraints was, as wewill show later on, not an issue. Financialproblems of the club were at the begin-ning the main arguments for selling their

home grounds to the city. In November2000 KAA Gent sold its stadium and thesurrounding territory with a total area of 7ha to the city of Gent for 3.68m euro andthe club agreed to rent the facility foranother nine years (see figure 2). The cityof Gent was very interested in the sitebecause in the «Spatial Structure Plan ofFlanders»(6), the area is defined as a res-idential zone (RUP,2005). The sellingprices of the grounds on the private prop-erty market were estimated at 150-175euro/m² (De Clerck,2005). This meansthat the city can sell the area to buildingcompanies and regain its investment. Theselling of the stadium can be defined as awin-win situation. The club used the cashflow to pay off some of its debts and thelocal government made a lucrative invest-ment. In the agreement between the cityof Gent and the club was a clause that thecity would help the club to find a newmore consumer-oriented location. Theresult was the creation of a public-privatepartnership for the relocation of the pro-fessional football club KAA Gent to a newstadium located on a site owned by thecity. The «Groothandelsmarkt (WholesaleMarket)» was chosen as the best optionof the proposed site and the constructionwill be built according to the SpatialStructure Plans of Gent and a forthcomingproject Environmental Analysis StudyProject. The new location, indicated by anarrow on figure 2, will be a suburban oredge-of-town stadium with fewer negativeexternality effects. The new stadium will have a capacity of20,000 seats and will be located on a plotnear the main highways. The area is 14 halarge and replaces old infrastructure thatin the long run would lose its commercialfunction. The nuisance field of theArtevelde stadium will comprise a non-residential area nearby the crossing of themain highways E40 (Brussels- Oostende)and E17 (Antwerpen-Kortrijk) and themain city ring (R4). The area has a lot ofcar-parking spaces. The accessibility withpublic transport (tram and buses) has tobeen improved. «De Lijn», the local pub-lic transport company already, engageditself to offer shuttle services to the stadi-um, the parking lots and the main train

199BELGEO • 2008 • 2


Figure 2. The location of the old en new stadium of KAA Gent.Source Map: NGI (2007)

station. The location beside the mainhighways will be an expression of thesport image of the city and will (probably)attract additional attendances. On June14, 2002 the city council of Gent decidedthat KAA Gent would be allowed to buythe territory for 1 euro but they have toparticipate in the construction of a new«wholesale market» on the other side ofthe city in Evergem. The city will not investin a new stadium but offers logistic sup-port to the total project that will be finishedin 2009 and the club has to pay a rent of1,000,000 euro a year. The managementof the club calculated that the maximumreturn of a sold-out Otten stadium wouldbe 8.5m euro (budget today 6.5m euro).The club hopes to increase his budget by45% in the Artevelde Stadium. A new sta-dium becomes part of the marketing mixof the club. It will in most cases attractmore people on match days and is amoney generator with a multiplicationeffect. The chairman and businessmanIvan De Witte (De Witte & Morel, a Hudsonglobal resources company) stated that astadium that would only be used for foot-ball can never become profitable. Thealternatives are financing through thebuilding of offices, hotels and commercialinfrastructure on the area nearby the sta-dium.An argument that Gent could not use wascapacity restraints of the old stadium.Feddersen e.a. (2006) determined capaci-ty restraints as an average use of 90% ofthe home attendances part of the stadium.In the case of KAA Gent the Otten stadiumhas a total capacity of 12,919 seats butbecause of safety rules only 12,500 can beused. These 12,500 have to be dividedbetween 10,645 seats for home atten-

dances and 1,855 for fans of the awayteam. The averages of the last five seasonsshows us that on average use of the homeseats capacity fluctuates between 69.6%and 76.9%. In the case of fans of the awayteam we notice a maximum value of39.5%. These figures shows that on aver-age the argument of capacity constraints isnot an option for KAA Gent.In a second phase we determine potentialcapacity restraints on some match days.The results in figure 3 shows us that in theseasons 2002/03 until 2005/06 at most ofthe match days home capacity is lessthan 80% and that in three to four occa-sions (games against SC Anderlecht andFC Brugge and sometimes RC Genk orStandard Luik) the use is more than 90%and in two occasion KAA Gent used someof the seats that are normally not allowedto be sold because of safety measure-ments. In the seasons 2006/07 and thenine games of 2007/08 played in the firstround of the competition, we notice anincrease in the use of the stadium andmore games have an attendance ratehigher than 90%. The conclusion is that capacity restraint isnot the main determinant for an enlarge-ment of the stadium. In some casescapacity restraints against the major clubscan result in an increase in the averageattendances but to have a significantupgrade of attendances KAA Gent thenovelty effect and in the short term thehoneymoon effect will have an importantrole. If capacity restraints is not the mainreason for the enlargement. In the case ofthe club is, as we will notice in part 4, apotential enlargement of the service areaor a deepening of the existing service areaan argument to build a bigger stadium.

201BELGEO • 2008 • 2

Season Average home attendance

Average visitors

Total average

2002/03 2003/04 2004/05 2005/06 2006/07

8,035 7,696 8,158 7,411 8,181

702 655 543 619 730

8,737 8,351 8,701 8,030 8,911

Table 1. The average home and away attendances of KAA Gent 2002/03-2006/07.

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

The season ticket-holders are the con-sumers through which the consumption ofthe service -in this case, professional-football-- is assured, they can be consid-ered as the «loyal» or «hard-core»-sup-porters. On the other hand is the nominalnumber of season ticket-holders not areflection of the real consumption. Thenominal values have to be corrected tovalues that indicates the real home atten-dances. Otherwise, a club with a relative-ly high number of season ticket-holdersand a relatively minor number of floatingattendances should have a larger poten-tial market than a club with not as manyseason ticket-holders but a large amountof floating attendance. The correction is

based on the real number of home atten-dances for each club and is called thetransformation-index. More formally,

= the nominal number of season ticket-holders for club j,

= the nominal number of home attendances for club j,

= transformation index for club j

The empirical determination of the serviceareas implied the formulation of a modelthrough which all communities in a certaindefined area can possibly be assigned toone or more clubs. To do so, a referenceindex is introduced to analyse the cover-age of these communities. The endoge-


Figure 3. The relative use of home capacity by home attendances of KAA Gent.Source data: KAA Gent* 2007/08 data of only 9 games

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

<60 60-70 70-80 80-90 90-100 >100

% use of home capacity

nu

mb

er

of

gam

es/s

easo

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2002/03

2003/04

2004/05

2005/06

2006/07

2007/08

TTHHEE SSEERRVVIICCEE AARREEAA OOFF KKAAAA GGEENNTT:: AA LLOOCCAATTIIOONN--AALLLLOOCCAATTIIOONNQQUUEESSTTIIOONN

Sn

j

Wn

j

jT

nous reference index, Ri is the averagecorrected number of home attendancesfor every 10,000 inhabitants in the totalmarket,

= total number of home attendances for all clubs,

= total population of the total market,

= endogenous reference-index

The model assigns the communities toone of the selected clubs and is based onthe consumption indexes of the communi-ties, Ci, the club specific consumptionindex, Cij and the club specific penetra-tion index Pij of « professional football» inthose communities. The community con-sumption index, Ci measures the rate ofconsumption of the service professionalfootball in the communities, and is calcu-lated as follows:

The club specific consumption index, Cijis:

= consumption index in location i

= consumption index of club j in location i

= corrected number of home attendances of club j in location i

= total population in location i

The club specific penetration index, Pijmeasures the relative orientation of acommunity to one or more clubs. Moreformally:

To allocate the communities and to deter-mine the different service areas andpotential consumers of the clubs we intro-duce a classification model. Pij dividesthe service areas of the clubs in differentareas. The service area of the clubs is aThe level of Cij results, as shown in themodel, in a further subdivision in an a orb. This is an indication for the rate of theconsumption of club j in location i. Thesubdivision b indicates that the communi-ty is not well covered and clubs canattract a relative important number of peo-ple out of them if they improve the qualityof their services.

203BELGEO • 2008 • 2

i

t

n

t RxB

W000.10

n

tW

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iR

Ci =

BW

i

c

ijx 10,000

Cij =

BW

i

c

ijx 10,000

Ci

ijC

c

ijW

Bi

Pij =

W

Wc

ij

c

ij x 100

THE SITUATION OF KAA GENT

KAA Gent hopes to attract an average of11,000-12,000 spectators in their newfacility. They already try to attract youngpeople through cheap season tickets. Thefocus on the youth is inspired by the ideathat the potential consumers of 30 to 50years old in the region of Gent are moredifficult to convince. The reason is that theclub played in the period (1971-1979 and1988) in the lower divisions, and some ofthem are for a considerable part fan ofClubBruggeKV. The result is that mostmembers of the small fan base are urbanpeople living in the surroundings of theold stadium and the nearby municipali-ties. The disadvantage of KAA Gent is thelocation on the main highway E40 fromBrussel to Oostende. ClubBruggeKV andRSC Anderlecht (Brussel) are two of themajor teams in Belgium with high atten-dances and a high drawing power of cen-trality. They are in a lot of ways an obsta-cle to the extension of other clubs. Theirreal range extends, to a large degree, thethreshold of professional football inBelgium. They dominate their regions anddetermine endogenously their spatial ser-vice areas. The service area ofClubBruggeKV and RSC Anderlechtreaches almost up to Gent and the E40highway is, because of the reduction in

time-distance, a corridor to them. Thenew location of the Artevelde stadium isnear the main highway and indicates thatthe club wants to compete against themin some of the rest areas of the serviceareas of the two major clubs. The data used to measure the marketpotential of KAA Gent are the season tick-et holders in 2006/07 of the clubs in theJupiler League, the first division ofBelgium. From this database we selectedthe clubs which have some spatial com-petition in the service area of KAA Gent.These are besides ClubBruggeKV andRSC Anderlecht the clubs SV ZulteWaregem and SK Lokeren. The data ofthe average attendances in the season2006/07 are given by the Belgian FA. Inthe case of KAA Gent, the club provideddetailed information of the attendanceson the different match days. The usedpopulation data on January 1, 2006 of thecommunities and cities are these given bythe official statistical institution of Belgian,the «Nationaal Instituut voor de Statistiek(NIS)», (NIS, 2007) This dataset was usedin the location-allocation model. The transformation index Ti of the differentclubs in spatial competition with KAAGent are given in table 2. In the case ofClubBruggeKV showed research(7) thatattendances without a season ticket are inmost cases located in West and Eastern


Pij Cij Potential consumers MONOPOLY AREA Aa Ab

Pij >80% and no other club has Pij > 1/3Ri

>Ri Ri - 1/3Ri

100% or % share significant clubs in relation to their Cij

INDIFFERENTION AREA Ba Bb

50-80% >Ri Ri – 1/3 Ri

or % share significant clubs in relation to their Cij

REST AREA Ca

25-50% >50% with

>1/5Ri(bij 25-50%) 1/5Ri-1/3Ri ( > 50%)

or % share significant clubs in relation to their Cij 25%

REST AREA Cb

10-25% with >25% with

>1/7Ri 1/7Ri-1/5Ri

or % share significant clubs in relation to their Cij 10%

TTHHEE AALLLLOOCCAATTIIOONN MMOODDEELL ((BBAASSEEDD OONN DDEEJJOONNGGHHEE,, 22000011))..

Flanders. This implies that we used the16,211 season ticket holders located inthose parts of Belgium as a reference. Saey & Lietaer (1980) determined that thetheoretical range of a regional servicearea in Flanders or the accessibility classwas set to 15km. According to the «trafficprinciple» 15km was the regional impactzone of a regional centre. A football clubplaying in the Jupiler League can be seenas a hierarchical marginal good that is,because of the exogenous limit of 18clubs, an indicator of an urban hierarchi-cal level(8). The combination of the num-ber of first division clubs, the Belgianurban hierarchical centre and a profes-sional football club as a hierarchical mar-ginal good lead us to a theoretical rangeof a regional club of at least 15km. Thistheoretical framework implies that KAAGent would have a major spatial competi-tion with Lokeren and some spatial com-petition in the outer range of his servicearea of SV Zulte Waregem. The empiricaldata shows that most of the clubs have alocal service area that in some caseshave a composition that was theoreticallypredicted. ClubBrugge, RSC Anderlechtand Standard Luik, the three major teamsin Belgium have a service area thatextend beyond the 15 km range.Dejonghe (2001) defined them as mono-liths because the spatial impact of theseteams are a strong limitation for the ser-vice areas of the other teams. KAA Genthas the disadvantage to be locatedbetween two of those major teams. Theresult is a strong spatial interaction withboth of them.

KAA Gent can be defined as a regionalclub with 7,793 (95.3%) of the homeattendances located in Eastern Flandersand 6,191 (75.7%) located in Gent andthe bordering communities. This meansthat the club has, as we expected, a smallspatial impact and it does not fulfil thecentral functionality associated with aregional city such as Gent. The datashowed that the fans of KAA Gent are liv-ing in the urban working fringe and somecommunities in the morphologic agglom-eration. The club is an expression of thelocal identity, the urban culture with theirown language and behaviourThe average attendances of all clubs inthe Jupiler League 2006/07 was 10,466with a total of 188,388 for all 18 teams.The average number of visiting fans wasgiven and is 659 or a total of 11.870. is therefore 176,518. This means that thetotal population of Belgium , of10,511,382, is Ri is 167.93. The servicearea and other nearby communities, ofKAA Gent and will be analysed in relationwith the location of those communities tothe central place Gent. Dejonghe (2001)for Belgium and Dejonghe, Van Hoof andKemmeren (2006) for the Netherlandsnoticed that some variables such as timedistance instead of real distance, histori-cal orientation, language borders(Flanders), religious borders (theNetherlands), historical isolation (rivers,island or lack of important routes) couldexplain these fluctuations. In the case ofKAA Gent it is the corridors that are creat-ed by the main highways E40/E17towards Brugge and Brussels and the his-

205BELGEO • 2008 • 2

Table 2. The transformation indexes of the main teams in the service area of Gent.

Club Average attendances

Average home attendances

Season tickets Fan cards(SC Anderlecht SK Lokeren)

Ti

KAA Gent FC Brugge SV Zulte Waregem SC Anderlecht SC Lokeren

8,911 25,421 6,178 24,268 4,314

8,181 24,641 5,600 23,609 3,900

4,814 16,211 4,224 19,622 2,739

1.70 1.34 1.33 1.20 1.42

n

tW

tB


Figure 4. The theoretical range of KAA Gent and the theoretical spatial competition withSC Lokeren and SV Zulte-Waregem.

torical political border between the indus-trial city of Gent and its rural surroundingthat constitute the main determinants offluctuations in relative consumption ofKAA Gent (Dejonghe, 2001).The contemporary location of the footballfield is a suburban residential area. In theproximity of the stadium we find someareas with a relatively high number of fansfor the team. Gent was and is an industri-al town with its own vernacular, local cul-ture, and urban mentality. The cultural dif-ference between Gent and the nearbyrural villages is/was very strong and stillinfluences the recruiting area of the localclub. The combination of these culturaldifferences, the lack of good perfor-mances in the 70s and 80s and the rela-tively low time distances to Brussels andBruges resulted in a low or non-consump-tion attitude in the nearby rural areas. Wenotice even in the agglomeration of Gentstrong consumption differences betweenthe rural areas, the areas near the E40and the older industrial or urban parts ofthe city. The impact of the main teams inthe different parts of Gent is shown intable 3. The total consumption of professional foot-ball in Gent is relatively low with a Ci of207.4. KAA Gent has only a Cij of 165.2 inits own location. This means that the valueis situated below Ri and potential growth of

attendances from the core city is possible.In comparison with the other teams in deJupiler League in 2006/07, as shown intable 4, this is a very low value.The low value in the centre city of Gent istypical for cities that offer a lot of otherleisure activities. We notice far the highestCi of KAA Gent in Gentbrugge/Ledeberg,Zwijnaarde and Wondelgem. These are theparts of the agglomeration nearby the oldstadium and are – with exception ofZwijnaarde – located in the older urbanand industrial area. In St Amandsberg andMariakerke is Pi KAAG higher than 80%but the Ci rather low. These parts arealready located some distance away fromthe E40 highway so that the time distanceto Brussel and Brugge increases. Both ofthese areas are a part of the market poten-tial of KAA Gent when they move to theirnew location. In Oostakker and the ruraltowns in the north we notice already theinfluence of Sp Lokeren. St DenijsWestrem/Afsnee and the more rural and insome parts residential village Drongen arelocated nearby the E40 highway. The timedistance to ClubBruggeKV and RSCAnderlecht is smaller so that the cost toconsume the product offered by the topteams is declining. These residential andrural areas with a lot of commuters andimmigrants from other parts of Flandershave fewer industrial, urban and cultural

207BELGEO • 2008 • 2

City part population Gent CiGent Brugge Lokeren Ander Pi Gent Gent (centre) 117,134 1,264 107.9 237 29 117 76.7 Gentbrugge/Ledeberg 28,257 1,124 397.8 40 10 33 93.1 Oostakker 12,513 181 144.7 44 42 27 61.6 St Amandsberg 22,549 365 161.9 35 22 31 80.6 Zwijnaarde 6,858 145 211.4 29 2 12 77.1 Mariakerke 11,678 193 165.3 36 3 8 80.4 Wondelgem 12,339 262 212.4 51 7 14 78.4 Drongen 12,277 184 149.9 60 3 24 67.9 St Denijs Westrem/ Afsnee 6,609 101 152.8 20 2 12 74.8 St Kruis Winkel/ Mendonk Desteldonk/Ter Donk

2,906

31

106.7

4

28

2

47.7

GENT 233,120 3,850 165.2 556 148 280 79.6

Table 3. The number of fans (per 10,000 population) of KAA Gent, FC Bruges, SCAnderlecht and SC Lokeren in Gent.

connections with the local identity associ-ated with KAA Gent. The relocation of KAAGent to the new facility is a move to thatpart of the agglomeration. The questionthat we can ask is «Will the club attractnew fans from the more blank spots in theagglomeration?» Furthermore the parts ofthe city near the Artevelde stadium havefewer inhabitants so that an absolute gainof attendances from that region will bepoor. The club needs a combination of achanging identity and success on the play-ing field to reach the targeted averageattendances of 11,000-12,000. We notice in a further micro analysis of thespatial dimension of the club in the near-by communities that the impact of theclub has been declining very fast. Theservice area of KAA Gent can by usingthe location-allocation model be dividedin a monopoly, indifferent and rest area.The result is shown in figure 5Most of the fans of KAA Gent live in com-munities in the surroundings of the oldstadium. Some of them, like parts ofDestelbergen, Melle and Merelbeke havebeen part of the morphologic agglomera-tion of Gent for a long time. The spatialimpact on the locations in the surroundingof the E40 direction Brussel and Bruggeshow us a distance decaying function.

This function is in the direction of Bruggevery steep and the attraction power ofKAA Gent declines very fast. In the direc-tion of Brugge we notice a steep declineof the support for KAA Gent and already arather high impact of ClubBruggeKV. Thesupport for ClubBruggeKV is low in thecommunities nearby Gent but fromWetteren on the spatial competition withClubBruggeKV returns as can be seenfrom gradual increase in the spatialimpact of RSC Anderlecht.The steep decline of the drawning powerof KAA Gent in the direction of Lokerencan be explained by spatial competitionwith SC Lokeren. In the recent past therehave been a lot of rumours about a merg-er with Sp Lokeren, a professional clublocated 28km away from Gent in a city of37,850 inhabitants. The spatial competi-tion between the two clubs occurs inWachtebeke, Laarne, Lochristi, Zelzate,Oostakker and the rural parts of theagglomeration of Gent. The relocation ofKAA Gent to a new facility is a move awayfrom Lokeren and makes a potentialmerger less interesting. Dejonghe (2001)and Dejonghe, Van Hoof & Kemmeren(2006) noticed that crossing another cityto visit a professional football team has,with an exception for the top teams, a


Club Home attendances

Population CiCLUB

RC Genk VC Westerlo STVV SV Zulte Waregem SC Lokeren KSV Roeselare FC Bruges/SV Bruges Exc Moeskroen SK Lierse SK Beveren FC Brussels* AEC Mons SC Charleroi KAA Gent SC Anderlecht Standard Luik GBAntwerp

5,805 1,734 2,756 3,419 2,398 3,183 6,167 2.712 1,691 2,047 1,809 2,803 4,186 3,850 1,449 2,695 5,048

63,787 22,896 38,247 50,643 37,850 53,611 117,224 52,825 33,272 45,705 44,767 91,221 201,300 233,120 96,011 187,086 461,496

908.8 757.3 720.6 675.1 633.6 593.7 526.1 513.4 508.2 447.9 404.1 307.3 207.9 165.2 150.9 144.1 109.4

Table 4. Ci of the clubs in their own location.*FC Brussels is located in Sint Jans Molenbeek (part of Brussels)

209BELGEO • 2008 • 2

Figure 5. The service area of KAA Gent.

The market potential of KAA Gent must begradually analyzed. Spatial competition isa strong limitation on growth and a reori-entation of the majority of a part of theinhabitants of a community towardsanother team can take a long time. Therecent good performances of KAA Gent(6th in 2004/05, 4th 2005/06 and 4th

2006/07) combined with a new facilitycould change the orientation of some ofthe new sport consumers in Gent and thenearby communities. Data in table 3 showed that the Ci of KAAGent is rather low in Gent. A combinationof good performances, novelty effect andreduction in time distance to potentialconsumers can result, as shown in theNetherlands, in an increase of atten-dances (Dejonghe, Van Hoof &Kemmeren, 2006). The market potential intable 5 and 6 are prognoses based ondata from other teams in the Belgian com-petition and they take into account theexisting spatial competition with otherteams and reduction in time distance. Theenlargement of the service area and thedeepening of the consumption in theexisting service area occurs graduallyfrom the location of the club towards theborder or even across the border of its

service area. Besides the novelty effectand a potential elimination of a capacityconstraint, is a reduction in time distanceone of the main issues in the decisionmechanism of potential consumers to visita consumer-oriented service such as pro-fessional football. In a homogenousspace would the attraction power of aconsumer-oriented service decline gradu-ally with the distance. In reality we have aheterogeneous space with corridors andbarriers which result in a fluctuation of therelative number of consumers that comefrom a certain physical distance towardsthat service. At this moment KAA Gent attracts 3,850fans from their own locations. A gradualupgrading or deepening of its own citymeans an potential additional averageattendances of 2,839. The club needsherefore a marketing strategy to keep itssupporters (more sport fans) from nearbythe old location and to activate the centreof the city and the potential sport con-sumers nearby the new location. The rela-tive low consumption of KAA Gent in itsown community can be seen as an indi-cator for a potential growth in atten-dances. The figures in table 5 are projec-tions of a potential raise and the Ci poten-

psychological impact. The result is asteep decline in the willingness to con-sume the service. This means that in caseof a merger of the teams a great numberof Lokeren fans will not follow their formerteam to the new facility of KAA Gent. The penetration index of KAA Gent is inthe communities that are more closelylocated to the new facility lower than inthose nearby the old stadium. Some ofthose communities such as De Pinte,Nazareth and Sint-Martens Latem arerural and/or more residential and to a less-er degree focused on Gent. Anotherimportant fact is that ClubBruggeKV hasalso a significant number of fans in thesecommunities. Zwalm and Zingem arecommunities located in the theoreticaland empirical verified spatial competitionarea with SV Zulte Waregem. Data shows

us that this region is for consumption ofprofessional football, focused onClubBruggeKV, RSC Anderlecht and to alesser degree on SV Zulte Waregem. Theregion is not well-connected with the restof Flanders and the fans that want toattend football have to travel for a longtime. The result is if people in a regionwithout a professional football team leavetheir region to consume professional foot-ball, they consume the better product, inother words they attend top teams. Thepotential gain to be made from fans fromthis region is rather limited. The potentialadditional market in this sector of the ser-vice area is dichotomous. In the commu-nities nearby the new stadium the impactof other teams is not so important and thepotential gain is relatively higher.


TTHHEE MMAARRKKEETT PPOOTTEENNTTIIAALL OOFF KKAAAA GGEENNTT

tial is kept rather low. In most of the multi-functional cities the relative consumptionof football tends to be rather low. Thesupply of leisure activities in these cities israther high and consumers have the prob-ability of choice. Smaller communities andcities offer in a lot of cases only one con-sumer-oriented service with a thresholdthat is higher than the other services. Inthat case the local consumption will behigh. This is shown in table 4 where thehighest relative consumption is noticed inGenk, Westerlo or Sint-Truiden to mentionsome.An upgrading of the market potential ofthe club has to be gradually started in thecommunities nearby Gent and on the mid-dle long or long term in the outer rangesof the service area. In a first stage KAAGent needs to raise its Ci in its monopolyarea Melle, Destelbergen and its indiffer-ent area Merelbeke, De Pinte, Oosterzele,Sint Martens Latem and Nazareth. KAA

Gent attracts at this moment 1,752 fansfrom these communities and the deepen-ing of the market could lead to, as shownin table 6, an increase of 1,138. In the outer ranges of the service area, therest area (C zone) and even beyond thatzone, will the drawing power of KAA Gentbe somewhat weaker in the beginning. Arelocation away from Lokeren makes itless probable that a raise in the number offans from the communities in spatial com-petition with Lokeren (table 7) will occur.In the direction towards Brussels, can areduction in time distance result in anenlargement or deepening of the servicearea. At this moment KAA Gent pulls in386 fans from this zone and Wetteren andSt Lievens Houtem are the first communi-ties in this part of the service area that canbe upgraded. An increase in the CiKAAGent by 50 in both of these commu-nities means an additional 163 fans. Thecommunities in the rest zone closer to the

211BELGEO • 2008 • 2

Table 5. Additional fans of KAA Gent in Gent.

City part population CiKAAG Ci pot Additional fans

Gent (centre) 117,134 107.9 250 1,664 Gentbrugge/Ledeberg 28,257 397.8 500 289 Oostakker 12,513 144.7 250 132 St Amandsberg 22,549 161.9 250 199 Zwijnaarde 6,858 211.4 400 129 Mariakerke 11,678 165.3 250 99 Wondelgem 12,339 212.4 250 46 Drongen 12,277 149.9 300 184 St Denijs Westrem/ Afsnee 6,609 152.8 300 97 St Kruis Winkel/ Mendonk Desteldonk/Ter Donk

2,906

106.7

-

-

GENT 233,120 165.2 2,839

Table 6. Additional of KAA Gent in the monopoly and B-zone.

Community population CiKAAG Ci pot Additional fans

Melle 10,585 255.1 400 153 Destelbergen 17,172 230.0 300 120 Merelbeke 22,253 217.9 350 294 De Pinte 10,235 151.4 300 152 Oosterzele 13,172 143.5 250 140 Nazareth 10,947 141.6 300 173 St Martens Latem 8,280 122.0 250 106 GENT

92,644

1,138

The relocation of the football grounds ofGent is a typical example of the recentmovements of football stadiums. The oldstadium was built in 1920 and despite therenewals in the 1980s it does not meet thenew needs of modern professional foot-ball. The stadium is located in a residen-tial neighbourhood and results in a lot ofnegative externalities to the surroundingarea. The idea of locating the stadium outof the residential areas and near mainhighways is typical in the relocation trendbut the main difference between this caseand a lot of other cases in the Dutch,German or English competition is that thestadium does not have a capacityrestraint on match days. This means thatthe demand for professional football is not

higher than the supply of seats and nov-elty effect combined with a good market-ing strategy and good performances willbe necessary to enlarge or deepen theservice area. Research based on thedataset of the season ticket holders madeit clear that KAA Gent has a local impactand that most of the fans are living in theneighbourhood of the old stadium. KAAGent never had the emanation of a topteam and suffered spatial competitionfrom FC Bruges and SC Anderlecht. Thedata showed that the fans of KAA Gentare living in the urban working fringe andsome communities in the morphologicagglomeration. In the suburban parts ofthe city and in the rural towns and citiesKAAG will become less accessible and

new stadium can be seen as the mainpotential enlargement zone of the servicearea. An upgrading of Ci KAAGent inGavere, Zingem and Zwalm by 100 and inthe other communities by 50 adds 550fans. In the direction of Brugge spatialcompetition remains very though and onlya combination of poor performances ofFC Brugge with excellent performancesof KAA Gent will reorient these communi-ties in the long term. The reduction of thetime distance towards Lovendegem andEvergem (both located near the R4 ringroad) is the first step towards the deepen-ing of the service area in that direction. An

increase of CiKAA Gent by 100 couldresult in an additional 416 fans. The final result is given in table 8. It showsus an average home attendance of13,287 in the middle long or long term.Adding 700 visiting fans gives us an aver-age attendance of 14,000 or 70% of thenew capacity. Knowing that in somecases, such as FC Bruges and SCAnderlecht and to a lesser degree RCGenk and Standard Luik, the attendancesare much higher than average means thatin almost half of the games the stadiumwill only be half filled.


Location Home attendances

Additional attendances

Market potential

Gent Monopoly/B-zone Restzone/outer range - direction Lokeren - direction Brussels - closer to new stadium - direction Bruges Other

3,850 1,752

351 386 375 732

735

2,839 1,138

-

163 550 416

-

6,689 2,890

351 549 925

1,148

735

TOTAL 8,181 5,106 13,287

Table 7. Market potential of KAA Gent.

CCOONNCCLLUUSSIIOONN

the main highway E40 is a corridor for thetwo top teams. The novelty effect of thestadium is based on the potential marketof the club. KAA Gent has a relatively lowlocal consumption and has the possibilityto deepen its existing service area and tohave some spatial extension in the com-

munities nearby the new location. The cal-culation of the market potential showed usthat in the middle long term the averageattendances can rise to 14,000 but this isstill only 70% of the new capacity. Onlywhen the major teams will visit the club isthere a probability of a sold-out stadium.

213BELGEO • 2008 • 2

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215BELGEO • 2008 • 2

(1) In 1983 the BBC paid £2.6m to cover theleague on television In 2005/06 stood thetotal turnover of the English Premier Leagueat �1.974b with �839 from broadcastingrights, �655 from matchday revenues and�500m from sponsoring according toDeloitte (2007). In a recent broadcastingdeal for the period 2007-2010 Sky is paying£1.314b, Setanta £392m, foreign broad-casting rights £625m and internet andmobile telephone providers £400m or£910.33m a year. The total turnover of thePremier League in 2007/08 is estimated on�2.555b (The Associated Press, 2007;Deloitte, 2007).

(2) Some of the new and modern stadiums arenamed after a sponsor. Examples are theEmirate Stadium of Arsenal, Allianz Arenaof Bayern Munich or the DSB stadium of AZin Alkmaar. In Belgium from June 1, 2007 onthe name of the Fenixstadium of RC Genkchanged into Cristal Alken stadium.

(3) In Horne (2006). (4) The Hillsborough disaster occurred on April

15, 1989 a semi final game of the FA cup

against Nottingham Forest at Hillsboroughthe grounds of Sheffield Wednesday result-ing in the death of 96 fans of FC Liverpool.

(5) Dobson S. & Goddard J. (2001), The eco-nomics of football, Cambridge, CambridgeUniversity Press; http://www.european-foot-ball-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm, 20/03/2007.

(6) This plan was introduced in 1997 and givesa scientific based framework on whichFlanders has to deal with his open space.The result should result in an improvementof the quality of land use.

(7) A rapport of KPMG in order to justify theneed of a new football arena for FC Brugge.We compared the season ticket holderswith 60.167 registered fans of the club andnoticed that fans from further away had aseason ticket in most of the cases.

(8) The urban centres in Belgium are, accord-ing to their centrality, classified in a hierar-chical urban system. There is one urbancentre in level 0, the capital city, 3 in level 1,the major cities and 17 centres in level 2,the regional cities (Van Der Haeghen et al.,1982, p. 281).

Trudo DejongheLessius Hogeschool. Dept. Handelswetenschappen

[email protected]

manuscript submitted in July 2007; revised in January 2008

Documents

The market potential of a club as an indicator for the size of a new …users.telenet.be/trudo.dejonghe/pdf/ghent.pdf · 2010-01-16 · tion of the Cristal Alken Arena of KRC Genk,