How Football Ticket Pricing Shapes Fan Emotion and Purchase Behaviour

04.02.2026

Wittenborg Researchers Reveal How Partitioned and All-Inclusive Pricing Affect Eredivisie Fans

Football fans are passionate, but does the way tickets are priced really affect whether they buy them? Researchers from Wittenborg University of Applied Sciences explored how partitioned pricing, where a ticket’s base price is shown separately from service fees, compares with all-inclusive pricing, where the total cost is presented upfront.

The study, Understanding the Role of Partition Pricing vs All-Inclusive Pricing on Consumer Behaviour and Purchase Intention of Eredivisie Football Tickets, was published in 2025 in the Advances in Consumer Research journal. It was authored by Nikita Pahwa, Assistant Professor at Wittenborg, Bojan Georgievski, Associate Professor at Wittenborg, and Jochem Kaper from Erasmus University Rotterdam.

With matchday revenues accounting for 23–26% of total club income, understanding ticket purchasing behaviour is critical. Pahwa, Georgievski and Kaper investigated how different pricing models influence perceptions of price fairness, customer frustration, satisfaction and purchase intention among Eredivisie fans.

The team surveyed 139 fans via social media and online platforms. Participants were randomly assigned to either a partitioned pricing scenario, which included a 10% service fee, or an all-inclusive pricing scenario. The survey used a realistic ticket purchase simulation, including stadium seating options and prices, to mirror real-life buying decisions.

The results revealed that partitioned pricing significantly increased customer frustration, confirming the emotional costs associated with multiple fees, as predicted by Prospect Theory. However, there was no significant effect on perceived price fairness, overall satisfaction or purchase intentions.

“Our findings reveal a fascinating emotional paradox in sports marketing,” said Pahwa. “While splitting ticket prices into base costs and service fees significantly increases fan frustration, it does not actually stop them from buying the ticket. In the world of Eredivisie football, the emotional bond a fan has with their team, their team identification, is far more influential than the pricing strategy used at checkout.”

Regression analysis supported this observation, showing that team identification was a strong predictor of purchase intentions, explaining 11% of the variation. Fans with strong attachments to their teams were more likely to buy tickets regardless of how the price was presented, highlighting the dominance of hedonic motivations, where fans prioritise the emotional experience of attending a match over purely economic considerations.

“The intellectual contribution of this research has had a notable academic and practical impact by identifying how pricing structures influence consumer emotions versus actual purchase behaviour in the sports industry,” added Georgievski. “This study fills a critical research gap by applying behavioural economic theories such as Prospect Theory and Team Identification Theory to the unique, emotionally charged context of the European football market.”

Pahwa noted that the research can serve as a benchmarking model to test the threshold of partition pricing service fees for tournaments across the sports world, extending beyond football.

The research offers practical insights for football clubs, ticket platforms and marketers. Clubs can tailor pricing strategies, platforms can improve transparency, and marketers can design promotions that leverage fan loyalty and emotional connection. Policymakers can also use these insights to enhance consumer protection in ticket sales.

The authors note that the relatively low surcharge used in the study (10%) may have limited the impact of partitioned pricing. Future research could explore higher fees, wider fan demographics and other sports contexts to further understand how pricing, emotion and cognition interact to shape consumer behaviour.