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Quality over quantity Sport owes more to spectators who attend matches
Updated: Tuesday January 30, 2001 12:10 PM
The best way to watch soccer is live and in person of course. It's also a way of measuring how passionate your support is. Anyone can sit back, watch a game on television, read the sports pages and buy the occasional team jersey, but it is real fans who go to matches and hand over their cash, week after week. With this in mind, I found some statistics on which clubs enjoyed the highest average attendance in Europe last season. Some of the results were predictable, others rather surprising. Manchester United had the highest average attendance in Europe (67,461), beating out Real Madrid (63,152), Borussia Dortmund (61,825), Roma (61,527) and Barcelona (61,111).
United's achievement is particularly impressive when you consider that Old Trafford's official capacity is 68,364, which means that United sold 98.7 percent of its tickets. Eleven clubs averaged 50,000 per match. Of those, four were Italian (Roma, AC Milan, Inter and Lazio), two were Spanish (Real and Barca), two English (Manchester United and Newcastle), two German (Borussia and Bayern Munich) and one Scottish (Celtic). Twenty-one clubs averaged 40,000 spectators a game or more. Of those, seven averaged 90 percent capacity during the season: Manchester United, Newcastle United (98.5 percent), Celtic (98.2), Liverpool (96.0), Sunderland (95.5), Rangers (94.7) and Borussia (90.1). Incidentally, fans of Napoli and Manchester City deserve a special mention. Their clubs ranked 21st (40,009) and 32nd (34,015) in terms of attendance last season, despite not being in the top flight. Manchester City was especially impressive, since Maine Road holds 34,026, which means that they averaged 99.9 percent of capacity. This is remarkable and further underscores the fact that, in terms of comfort and user-friendliness, British stadiums are probably the best in Europe, if not the world. There are basically two reasons for this. After the Hillsborough tragedy (when 98 people were trampled to death in 1989), the British government forced top-flight clubs to introduce all-seater stadiums (and, just as importantly, helped provide some of the funding to do so). This not only allowed large-scale redevelopment, it also (together with better policing) helped cut down on fan violence. When everyone is seated, you can really only start a fight with your neighbors, whereas terracing is much more difficult to control. The other factor is that British clubs are more commercially minded and, unlike, say, Italy, most grounds are owned by the clubs themselves. This gives them greater latitude to make improvements. Of course, most of these improvements are aimed at making a buck, but the end result is better facilities. British stadiums, by and large, tend to be smaller than those on the continent, yet the Premiership is the best-supported league in the world (averaging 32,758 per game, to Italy's 29,801, Germany's 29,765 and Spain's 23,295). What this shows is that fans prefer smaller grounds that are filled to near-capacity, rather than sparsely populated monoliths. Serie A offers the most glaring examples of how enormous, crummy stadiums -- where fans need binoculars to have any idea what is happening on the pitch -- tend to drive supporters away. Juventus' Delle Alpi holds 69,041, but, despite finishing second last season, the bianconeri only attracted a paltry 36,394 spectators per game. Bari did even worse. It managed to sell just 21.9 percent of its tickets, averaging 12,811 spectators in a ground which holds 58,270. The sad thing is that both these grounds, the Delle Alpi and Bari's San Nicola were built in the late 1980s at great expense. Rather than intimate, fan-friendly stadiums, the architects went for showy monstrosities, complete with an athletic track that places spectators light years away from the action. Portugal, despite its long and glorious tradition, fares very poorly as well. Only three Portuguese clubs rank in the top 130 in terms of average attendance: Benfica is 41st (29,000), Porto is 63rd (21,125) and Sporting Lisbon is 73rd (19,625). It is no coincidence that all three play in cavernous stadiums: Benfica are in the Estadio Do Luz (77,844), Porto in the Antas (76,000) and Sporting in the Jose Alvalade (52,411), which means they all average less than 40 percent of capacity. The lesson to be learned here is more than just: big stadium bad; small stadium good. Real Madrid and Barcelona have huge grounds which, on average, are two thirds full. Ideally, they'd be sell-outs every week, but to Real and Barca the current situation makes sense. They are raucous, intimidating places to go for big games when almost 100,000 fans are screaming down at you. And even when they are only half-full, 50,000 people make a heck of a lot of noise. Prices, of course, have a lot to do with it. The Premiership is very expensive, partly due to supply and demand, partly because the facilities are excellent. Serie A is also relatively expensive, which makes less sense: few games are sold out and most stadiums are comparatively poor. Spain's Liga has a better formula. Tickets are much cheaper and, while not all the stadiums are first-rate, they tend to be at least three-quarters full, also because many of the smaller clubs have tiny grounds. France is another success story. Ten years ago average attendance in Le Championnat was just over 10,000 per game. Today it stands at 22,355 and three clubs are among the top 25 in Europe: Marseille (48,250), Paris St. Germain (43,216) and Lens (38,477). While the success of the French national team has obviously had something to do with it, much has to do with improved marketing and facilities. After all, most top French play abroad and, besides, the trend began in the early 1990s, back when France was unable to qualify for the World Cup, let alone win it. Thirty years ago, gate receipts represented 90 percent of a club's revenue. Today that figure is closer to 30 percent at the top clubs, as television and merchandising have provided additional revenue streams. Perhaps it's time for clubs to go for quality over quantity. This means being more sensitive to what the market can bear: smaller, better grounds with better facilities, but which are always close to capacity. Naturally, you can't build a new ground every week based on your expected gate, so, for those clubs with big stadiums, lowering prices to ensure better attendance (especially since they can make most of the money back through concessions) might prove wise. Ultimately, soccer is a spectator sport with the emphasis on "spectators." There is no substitute for going to the ground in person and watching the game live. And it is fans who keep the game alive and allow it to flourish. That's why clubs might want to pay a little more attention to their needs. Based in London, Gabriele Marcotti writes a weekly column on international soccer for CNNSI.com.
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