Combination of factors for the presence of the public: a look at the lower levels of football in Minas Gerais

At the lowest levels of football in Brazil, one of the revenue sources is the box office leading to the need to identify the motivations of fans to attend stadiums and support their favorite football teams. The occupancy rate of Brazilian stadiums is lower than in other competitions in the world, which denotes the importance of knowing the configurations that mobilize the presence of the fans in following the matches. Brazil has more than 850 professional football clubs and only 128 of these teams compete in one of the four divisions of the national championship and studies point to the importance of regional championships in the Brazilian football ecosystem. This work aimed to analyze comparatively the matches of the first professional divisions, divided into 291 matches of Module I and 332 matches of Module II, of the Campeonato Mineiro, the Minas Gerais state championship, between 2015 and 2018 seeking to understand in which combinations of factors the public is present in the stadiums. This research found a combination of factors using Coincidence Analysis that implies the importance of high-ranking teams, acting in matches as a visitor, in attracting the public to stadiums to watch Module I of the Minas Gerais Soccer Championship. It also found minimally sufficient conditions that showed the importance of the rivalry factor and performance-related factors in causing a good occupancy rate of Module II of the state championship. This study brings notes to the importance of high-ranking teams in the dispute, necessary to attract the public to the stadiums in the games of Module I of the state championship of Minas Gerais. It also expands the scenario that covers most professional clubs in Brazil and is distant from the eyes of the great public fan of the sport.