The role of facial attractiveness in tennis TV-viewership

Helmut Dietl, Anil Özdemir and Andrew Rendall

Sport Management Review, 2020, vol. 23, issue 3, 521-535

Abstract: •Facial attractiveness increases viewership for female tennis matches.•Facial attractiveness has no effects on male tennis matches.•Expected match quality drives tennis TV-viewership, especially for male matches.•Viewers are interested in close and uncertain matches.Social sciences, anthropology, psychology, and economics researchers have shown various effects of physical attractiveness. In this study, the authors analyze 622 live tennis matches from 66 Grand Slam tournaments between 2000 and 2016, examining the relationship between facial attractiveness, measured by tennis players’ facial symmetry, and TV-viewership. Results indicate that facial symmetry plays a positive role for female matches while there is no significant effect for male matches. The effect persists in several subsample regressions and robustness checks. The findings have important implications for managers in the field of sports. While public broadcasters have a public service function and therefore should be careful in exploiting consumer biases to avoid reinforcing non-sports taste-based discrimination types. Commercial broadcasters and media institutions with solely profit-maximizing objectives will likely exploit consumer biases.

Date: 2020
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DOI: 10.1016/j.smr.2019.04.004

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