"ANALYZING ATTENDANCE PREDICTORS IN MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH"

Abstract

Attendance at sporting events has been a subject of extensive investigation, as reflected in the abundant references within the Literature Review section. However, the domain of Major League Soccer (MLS) match attendance remains relatively underexplored. Previous attempts to predict attendance have predominantly relied on multivariate linear regression models. This study shifts its focus to MLS match attendance, evaluating the effectiveness of three machine learning regression techniques alongside a panel-adjusted linear regression approach. The primary objective of this article is twofold: firstly, to showcase best practices in developing machine learning models, and secondly, to assess the suitability of these methods for generating accurate attendance forecasts