Latin America’s Largest Football Stadiums

The Premier League is the jackpot of football. No other European league rakes in the same amount of money, and no other league divides it that equally. If you are one of Europe’s many mid-sized clubs, the Premier League is where you would want to be.

The problem with the Premier League is, of course, that it only has place for 20 teams, and even though it limits eligibility to English teams, there are easily double that competing for a spot.

So what is the recipe for getting into the Premier League and staying there? It is easy enough to make an educated guess and list such variables as sound policies, effective scouting, being based in a large catchment area, a prolific youth academy, and surely a healthy dose of luck.

Having a rich owner can also propel a club to England’s top league, but if such easy money is not around, it has often also been argued that playing at a large stadium increases the probability of a prolonged stay in the Premier League. The extra matchday revenue and added prestige of a large stadium may be just the extra boost a club needs. But is this true?

There have been relatively few developments in English stadiums in recent years. The activity of the 1990s is well-documented, but developments more or less came to a halt after the opening of the Emirates Stadium in 2006. Since then, only Cardiff City and Brighton & Hove Albion have opened new decently-sized stadiums. 

The result is that most clubs now play at a stadium with a size that was determined by their status in the mid and late 1990s, or otherwise was destined by the limits of a pre-existing stadium, but which they now feel is not large enough for permanent Premier League football, which means they may have to increase capacity.

Most of these clubs have something in common, which is that they play at a stadium with a capacity of between 20,000 and 30,000 seats, and feel that they need to expand to over 30,000 seats to be guaranteed of regular Premier League football.

The clubs that are currently very seriously considering expanding are Fulham, West Bromwich Albion, Queens Park Rangers, Reading, and Swansea City. Clubs that have thought of expanding, but have now taken a more long-term view include Stoke and Norwich. Wolves have built a new stand, but for now postponed the rest of their plans. Brighton and MK Dons have also just completed an expansion. Southampton and Forest have vaguer ambitions. Scrapped plans include those of Derby County, Portsmouth, Sheffield United, Birmingham City and Middlesbrough. Bristol City’s new stadium status remains unclear. West Ham’s bid for the Olympic Stadium is another variant with the same goal.

Apart from the above clubs, there are also Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, and Spurs that have or had ambitious plans, but these clubs are already pretty much guaranteed of Premier League football. Add to these another five or so teams that have a pretty solid Premier League status, and that leaves about 10 places to challenge for.

We start our analysis with a chart that gives an overview of the present situation. The blue columns are the Premier League teams, the green ones the Championship teams, and we have added a few other Football League teams that either have played in the Premier League in the last decade or have a stadium with a 25,000+ capacity.

What is particular about English stadiums, is that there are a lot with a capacity of between 20,000 and the lower 30,000s, but relatively few with a capacity higher than approximately 33,000 seats. The big clubs that have already cemented their Premier League status have long broken out of the pack with capacities of over 40,000.

But despite the fact that the nine largest stadiums all house a Premier League club, there are still quite a few clubs with a smaller stadium that have made it to the Premier League, such as currently Swansea, QPR, Stoke, and West Brom.

The thing is, we really cannot consider just one year of data, but have to look over a larger period to find out whether there is a proper correlation between stadium size and Premier League longevity.

The next chart plots the capacity of the same stadiums against the number of seasons each club played in the Premier League in the last decade. We have given each Championship season a weight of 0.1 Premier League season so that the dots spread out a little more.

Some clearly distinguishable dots are for example Newcastle United (9 PL seasons and 1 Championship season), Fulham (10 PL seasons with a low capacity), and Leeds United (1 PL season and 6 Championship seasons). The dots at exactly the 1 are of course the teams that have played 10 seasons in the Championship (Cardiff and Ipswich).

The blue line shows the correlation between capacity and Premier League success, and it shows that there is some correlation, but also not a very strong number (an R² of 34% to be precise). Note that correlation is not the same as causation.

We could argue that the clubs below the trendline have been overperforming in comparison to the size of their stadium, while the ones above the line have been underperforming. Clear overperformers seem to be Portsmouth, Wigan, Bolton, and Fulham, while underperformers are Sunderland, Leeds United, and Sheffield Wednesday. It is not very difficult to find the reasons for these cases.

We should bear in mind though, that many of the clubs that want to expand, want to move from capacities of in the 20,000s to over 30,000. Will this increase their chances much?

The following chart shows the same as the one above, but only for the stadium with a capacity of between 20,000 and 40,000.

There is a lot less correlation here (the R² drops to 10%), which raises the question whether expanding to, say, 35,000 seats really helps your case in terms of playing Premier League football. Likely not very much, and it seems that instead an increase to at least 40,000 may be required.

Expanding to over 40,000 seats is a big step though, something that most clubs on the earlier list are not actively considering. The only example of a club that tried to make the leap to the big boys by building a large stadium is Sunderland.

Sunderland naturally has a rich history, but most of it was over a century ago, and when they built the Stadium of Light in the mid 1990s they were a Championship side. Making the move from the small Roker Park to a stadium of almost double the size was surely ambitious.

Has it paid off? The start at the Stadium of Light was shaky with two further seasons in the Championship, and even after the club had climbed back to the Premier League, two further relegations followed in the mid 2000s. But both times the club bounced back quickly and has been relatively safe in recent years.

In comparison, in the earlier years of the Premier League, Sunderland’s situation (stadium and attendances) was very much similar to those of the likes of West Brom, Leicester, Derby, Stoke, Crystal Palace, and Birmingham City. Sunderland now seem to be positioned slightly better than those teams, though some others (e.g. Wigan, Bolton, Blackburn, and West Ham) have done almost just as well with smaller stadiums. Still, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the club might have had a more volatile decade if it had build a smaller stadium.

If we look at the clubs that want to expand, QPR, Southampton, and possibly Nottingham Forest would be aiming for a capacity of over 40,000 seats. If West Ham gets to rent London’s Olympic Stadium, this will also be a big boost in capacity, though Boleyn Ground is already one of the larger stadiums of the list.

If various clubs go ahead with expanding capacity, this could mean that the ones left behind get less opportunity for regular Premier League football. After all, there are only 20 places in the Premier League. It may, however, also mean that few will change in this sense, which brings us to one of the big risks of increasing capacity.

Most of the clubs that are considering expanding think they can easily fill this extra capacity in the Premier League, and they may very well be right. However, if Premier League football remains an occasional thing, they may find themselves playing in very empty stadiums in the Championship.

The following chart lists the average occupancy rates of some relevant teams in the last two seasons they played in the Premier League and Championship (in the last decade).

What we see here is that few clubs have problems filling their stadiums in the Premier League. We earlier found that the average occupancy rate in the Premier League is over 90%, and most of these clubs seem to easily make that. The ones that don’t aren’t currently considering increasing capacity.

So most clubs have a case when they argue that their stadium is too small for the Premier League. The problem is that most of the above teams will be spending most time in the Championship, and as we can see hardly any of them fill their stadium consistently in the Championship. Norwich is the only real exception here, though Brighton is also doing great this season.

Most clubs don’t make an occupancy rate of 80% in the Championship though, and one typically seems a ceiling of an average of 25,000 spectators a match. What’s more, attendances seem to be on the decline.

Some clubs are looking to build a new stadium instead of expanding their existing stadium, and they could legitimately expect a bounce in attendances based on the initial excitement of a new stadium. Such bounce is likely to be a lot less in the case of an expansion, but can also wear off in the long term, which is for example the case for Middlesbrough and Hull.

Some clubs have a rather healthy approach to expanding. Reading, for example, state that they do not expect much more revenue, but merely want to give more people the chance to witness Premier League football. The consequence will however be a half-empty stadium in the Championship. Is that worth it?

One should also not exaggerate the power of the Premier League to pull in crowds. Stoke, West Brom, and Wolves, for example, do not consistently sell out in the top league even though their occupancy rates are over 90%. The Premier League does attract a lot of people though, and while The Championship does very well for a non-top league, it has its limits.

Some might say that lowering prices may be able to attract more crowds in the Championship. Tickets are currently far from cheap, averaging £22.50* for the cheapest adult tickets, which gets increased to £26.50 for top category matches.

While this may be true, the problem is that matchday revenue is far more important for Championship teams than for those in the Premier League, which get a massive boost from television money. Lowering prices will therefore have a much more direct impact on the quality on the pitch, something fans may not be willing to accept.

Another option could be expanding the Premier League, something recently suggested by economist Stefan Szymanski. As adding more fixtures to an already packed football season would be next to impossible, this would mean an uneven schedule where not all teams play each other every season, and as a consequence play-offs. It is the system used in American sports, though I suspect not something likely to happen in England in the next decade(s).

The conclusion is therefore likely something most clubs have also already realised, which is to be careful with expanding a stadium. For this reason, clubs as Norwich, Swansea, and Reading first require two or three consecutive Premier League seasons before they embark on any works.

There may be the opportunity for a few more clubs to make a move like Sunderland did, but you might have to do it big, and if it does not work out, you’ll find yourself playing in the Championship in a half-empty stadium.

* Based on a random selection of 18 Championship and 2 League One teams.

Does a larger stadium guarantee Premier League football?

The Primera División’s attendances are arguably one of the most interesting of Europe. Few clubs regularly fill their stadium, so there are quite a few fluctuations. What’s more, we had quite a contest between Barcelona and Real Madrid on who would have the highest average this year.

We already know from our general comparison of Europe’s major leagues that the Primera División averaged 28,676 spectators per match last season, making it the third best-attended league of Europe.

We furthermore found that the Spanish clubs managed to sell just under 73% of all seats, and that only 10% of all matches were completely sold out. Attendances were also very volatile, often fluctuating heavily from one home match to the next.

But before we start our in-depth analysis, we first need to remark that collecting Spanish attendance figures has been no easy exercise. There are no official data published, and we therefore depended on the figures that Spain’s major newspapers published. Unfortunately, these newspapers regularly managed to report several completely different figures, making a bit of interpretation necessary.

As a check, we have compared our figures with those of european-football-statistics.co.uk, and found most to be very much in line, in fact, often surprisingly similar. We are therefore confident that our numbers are reasonably accurate, but bear in mind that they are rough numbers.

We start our in-depth analysis with the comparison of the 2011/12 average with that of the season before:

We see here that the average increased with 1.6%, which is decent, but these numbers of course include three new teams that replaced three relegated ones. And one of these promoted teams was Real Betis, which has reasonably large attendances.

So if we take out the six relegated and promoted teams, the small increase turns into a small decrease of 1.3%. However, not a decrease to really worry about.

The next chart will answer the question whether Barcelona or Madrid had the highest attendances last season:

The answer is Real Madrid, but only just. After the big 2 there is quite a gap to the rest of the field where we find the likes of Atlético, Valencia, Betis, and Atheltic. Kind of the clubs we expect there to be.

The difference is large between the top and the bottom, because Getafe does not even attract 10,000 people per match, and Rayo Vallecano and Racing de Santander hover only just above that.

If we compare the individual club attendances of the 2011/12 season with those of the previous season, we get the following chart:

Over half of the clubs had an increase or decrease of 5% or more in attendances, and six clubs had a difference of more than 10%. Most of these differences seem performance-related. Levante and Málaga both had exciting seasons, and Zaragoza had a great rally at the end of the season that prevented them from relegating.

Espanyol and Mallorca both had uneventful seasons, and Racing and Villareal relegated. The odd one out may be Getafe, who long challenged for European football, but saw a decline in attendances of more than 13%.

The next chart shows how well the clubs were able to fill their stadiums:

Málaga and Granada did really will in filling their stadiums, and also Athletic had a respectable 88% occupancy rate. On the other end of the spectrum we have the clubs with poor attendances that often play at too-large stadiums.

It is striking that many of these clubs with poor occupancy rates play in stadiums that are relatively new. Sure, Getafe’s Coliseum Alfonso Pérez and Mallorca’s Iberostar Estadio are lacking in many ways, but Espanyol’s Estadi Cornellà-El Prat is a fine stadium and it seems that the Espanyol board somewhat overestimated the club’s fanbase when it decided to build a new stadium with a capacity of over 40,000 seats.

If we look at the number of sold out matches, we see that only Málaga and Granada sell out on a regular basis. Both clubs sold out just over half of their home matches. No other club managed to sell out more than three home matches, and seven clubs did not sell out even one single match during the season.

Normally we would now show how attendances developed over the season, but due to the earlier mentioned reporting issues, we do not think showing individual data points gives a reliable picture. Instead we will show you a different chart:

The above chart shows you how much the attendances typically moved up or down from one home match to another (in statistical terms: the standard deviation of the movements).

Getafe showed the most movement. From any home match to the next attendances moved up or down with as much as 50%. The fans of Levante and  Mallorca also proved to be particularly fickle.

The fans of Málaga and Athletic were the most loyal. Granada’s fans would have joined them if it were not for one significantly lower attendance mid season, which may in fact be a reporting issue.

Real Sociedad’s attendances also proved to be very stable considering they have a lot of free capacity. That said, their 17% was about equal to that of the Premier League’s most fickle fans, those of Bolton.

One thing that causes the high volatility of Spanish attendances is that the home matches against Barcelona and Madrid attract significantly more people than those against the other teams. That is despite the higher ticket prices most clubs charge for the privilege to see Messi and Ronaldo.

So what does the future look like for the Primera División? Will the success of the league bring growth to Premier League levels, or will the continuing economic crisis result in more people staying at home. The fact that the LFP is increasingly scheduling matches at hostile kick-off times like 11:00 pm will surely not help.

Of course, nobody knows what will happen with the economy. What we can predict, however, is whether next season’s attendances will benefit from the return of Deportivo de La Coruña, Celta de Vigo, and Valladolid, who will replace the trio of Sporting de Gijón, Villarreal, and Santander. They will, probably, and in particular La Coruña’s high attendances will pull the average up.

If we look at long-term growth, this could come from new and renovated stadiums, something we have seen in England and Germany.

There are currently three clubs (almost) building new stadiums, which all have a rather high-profile: Valencia, Atlético and Athletic.

Valencia’s and Atlético’s new stadiums are surely state of the art and both clubs have aimed high with capacities of around 70,000. Possibly too high, and it is unlikely that they will be able to completely fill their new stadium right away. Both stadiums are still far from finished though, and in particular Valencia’s problems are well-documented.

Bilbao’s new stadium, on the other hand, seems to be progressing a lot better, and the club has also been more sensible with a capacity of 54,000 seats, which may even be too modest considering Athletic’s loyal support.

The rest of the Primera División stadiums is a mixture of sufficiently decent stadiums, barely acceptable stadiums, and downright poor stadiums, and in most cases there is still a lot of opportunity for improvement in terms of hospitality.

That said, many Spanish clubs have already at some point played with the idea of building a new stadium, for example Zaragoza, Mallorca, Málaga, and Celta, but in the current economic climate few will find the funding.

Madrid does have plans to further expand the Bernabéu, though only with a few thousand extra seats. Barcelona, on the other hand, have recently postponed plans for a new stadium or extensive renovation of Camp Nou.

Something that Spanish clubs might actually be able to do to increase attendances is to lower ticket prices. These are now the highest of Europe if adjusted for purchasing power, and one would imagine that lower prices may convince more people to make the journey to the stadium. Real Betis is said to already consider such move.

While Spanish attendances are still very decent, there remains the feeling that the league has a lot more potential than it is currently showing, and it might not be that unreasonable to think that the combination of returned economic growth and sensible policies of clubs and LFP may bring the league to the levels of the Premier League, though this will likely at least take a decade or two.

The 2011/12 Primera División season in attendances

This is already part five of our attendances series, having before compared the attendances of Europe’s six major leagues, and then taken in-depth looks at the attendances of the Premier League, Bundesliga, and Ligue 1. It is now the turn of the Dutch Eredivisie.

The Eredivisie’s attendances are in many ways comparable to the Premier League and Bundesliga, apart from the actual level, of course.

In our general comparison we saw that the Dutch Eredivisie averaged a total of 19,514 spectators per match, for the first time beating the French Ligue 1.

We also saw that the Dutch clubs managed to sell 91% of all seats, and to sell out 37% of all matches. Two Dutch clubs sold out all of their home matches, whereas three clubs did not sell out any at all.

There were relatively few fluctuations in attendances, though there was a definite trend upward over the course of the season after a slow start.

Our first analysis will look at the growth of attendances in comparison with the previous season:

We see a small increase in attendances of 0.8%. However, if we take into account that Willem II relegated and was replaced by RKC Waalwijk, and that the former tends to attract significantly more people than the latter, we see that attendances actually increased with 2.2%.

This is a very decent increase, especially if you are operating so close to full capacity (compare that with the +4.6% of the Bundesliga and -0.4% of the Premier League).

Our next chart shows how the 18 Eredivisie clubs compare in terms of attendances:

What strikes is that there is quite a difference between the clubs. Season averages range from 3,319 per match for Excelsior to 50,147 per match for Ajax. There are a few more clubs with averages of under 10,000, but then there are also Feyenoord and PSV to pull the average up again.

We actually know about the Dutch Eredivisie that the far majority (but not all) of the clubs report the number of sold tickets, but not the number of people that actually entered the stadium. Dutch clubs traditionally sell a lot of season tickets, but some clubs admit that the average percentage of no-shows is about 10% (though this tends to be lower for smaller clubs).

An extreme case happened in February during one of those very cold weekends, when Ajax reported an attendance of 47,923 for their home match against NEC (because that many people paid to get in), but in reality only 21,706 people entered the Amsterdam ArenA.

Our indication is that clubs in other leagues use similar methodologies, so there is no reason to think figures are skewed in favour of the Dutch.

Our next analysis combines the first and second chart and looks at how last season’s club attendances compare with those of the season before:

We see that very few clubs have significant changes, often not even a change of 0.5% up or down.

On the positive end, only two changes really jump out. Those are the changes of FC Twente and Vitesse Arnhem, and they can both be easily explained.

FC Twente expanded their stadium with an additional 6,000 seats. They sold out before, and kept doing so after the expansion.

Vitesse’s attendances had been on the decline for the past few seasons due to poor results, but the club got taken-over, new funds became available, and they had a very decent season.

Feyenoord and Ajax also clearly showed signs of a good season, whereas ADO Den Haag’s attendances reverted back to normal levels after reporting a good increase the season before due to a for-them excellent season. Utrecht and NAC had little to celebrate and therefore also showed some declines.

The next chart shows how well the clubs filled their stadiums:

There are really only four clubs that have a lot of free capacity, which are ADO Den Haag, FC Utrecht, Roda JC, and Vitesse Arnhem. RKC Waalwijk’s occupancy rate can also be considered to be somewhat disappointing considering the small size of their stadium.

All other clubs managed to fill their stadiums very well this season. The next chart complements the picture with the number of sold out matches (the matches at which at least 97% of all tickets were sold).

FC Twente and Heracles Almelo sold out every match, and Groningen, NEC, and Heerenveen at least half of all matches. Many clubs though, have troubles selling the tickets that are left for general sale after filling up their stadium pretty well with season tickets. Perhaps because of the club card requirements that many clubs still have.

We already mentioned that attendances moved up over the course of the season, but how does this look on a per-club basis? We start with the chart of the 9 club that showed the least movement (up or down) in attendances. The 17 numbers at the bottom are the 17 home matches of each team.

The only club that had a real trend in their attendances, was Ajax. The mid-season slump reflected a similar slump in performance, but attendances picked up pretty soon after it became clear that they would compete for the title after all.

The second chart shows the development of attendances for the 9 clubs with the most movement in attendances.

Feyenoord also shows a clear trend up after fans realised they were going to have a rather splendid season. FC Twente had a changing capacity in the first months because of reparation works after an under-construction new roof had collapsed.

The club with the highest fluctuations in attendances was Vitesse (typically 19% up or down from one match to the next), followed by ADO Den Haag (19%), Roda JC (16%), and RKC Waalwijk (14%). Not surprisingly, these are all clubs with significant free capacity.

Overall, volatility of attendances is very low in the Netherlands, and they only get beaten by the Premier League in this regard.

So what does the future look like for the Eredivisie? For years we have seen a steady growth in attendances, but can they break the 20,000 mark, or even surpass the Italian Serie A?

The answer to the last question will, of course, very much depend on the Serie A. The answer on the first could very well be a yes, though it won’t come easy.

The first thing to consider is whether the two newly promoted clubs (PEC Zwolle and Willem II) will do better than the relegated ones (Excelsior and De Graafschap), and this is a definite yes. While the attendances of Willem II and De Graafschap are very much alike, Zwolle’s attendances will likely be closer to 10,000 per match than the 3,300 Excelsior attracted.

Whether there is more growth, will very much depend on how well the clubs with a lot of free capacity do. If Vitesse has another good season, their attendances have potential for more growth, as do those of ADO Den Haag and Utrecht. But they can just as well go down in case the results disappoint the fans. Feyenoord’s performance will also be critical in this.

Long-term growth will have to come from new stadiums or stadium expansions, though the Dutch clubs are definitely feeling the crisis, and finding the money to do so will not be easy.

Heracles and VVV both have concrete plans for a new stadium though, and will likely move into a new home in two to three years time.

Most of the clubs that currently fill their stadiums for 95% or more have at some time considered expanding their stadium, but few have concrete plans at the moment, and definitely not the type of expansions FC Twente has been making in the last few years. But Twente themselves have also postponed a further expansion to 40,000 seats, which they had earlier planned.

Similar expansion plans of Groningen, AZ, and PSV have long been abandoned, and NEC keeps struggling to find a way to expand the Goffertstadion. Feyenoord has plans to build a new 60,000-stadium, but it remains to be seen whether they receive planning permission and can find the funding.

It is more likely that many clubs will follow the lead of the likes of Zwolle and Heerenveen, and find creative solutions to increase capacity. De Graafschap, NAC, and VVV have already reintroduced standing in the Eredivisie, and Zwolle will do the same this summer.

As many Dutch stadiums have ditches to separate the fans from the pitch, another solution is to bridge this gap with makeshift stands. Ajax has done this in the past, and again Zwolle will do something similar. Heerenveen also had plans to do this to increase capacity of the Abe Lenstra Stadion, but plans have been postponed for the moment.

A final and even simpler way to increase attendances may be to make it easier for the neutral visitor the visit a match. Many clubs make it horribly difficult for anyone not owning a club card to visit a match, and letting go of these restrictions that seem completely unnecessary may bring more people to the stadiums.

All in all, it is not unlikely that the Eredivisie will soon break the 20,000-mark, but further growth will be slow. That is of course fine, because most clubs already own modern stadiums, are able to fill them very well, and the Eredivisie already has the highest attendances of “the rest of Europe”. Now if only Dutch clubs would become more customer friendly, you have a very fine package.

The 2011/12 Eredivisie season in attendances

We continue with our series of the 2011/12 season in attendances with the French Ligue 1. Earlier we already analysed the attendances of the Premier League and Bundesliga, and in contrast to those, Ligue 1 does not have attendances that very much reflect the stadiums’ capacities, and therefore promises a bit more excitement.

When we compared the attendances of Europe’s six major leagues, we found that Ligue 1 ranked bottom with an average attendance of 18,870 per match, which meant that about 73% of all tickets had been sold. Attendances were also quite evenly spread, with most matches counting between 11,000 and 22,000 spectators. But that said, they were also rather volatile with many significant up and down movements. The risk of encountering a full house was not high last season in Ligue 1, with just under 6% of matches sold out.

What we did not analyse is how 2011/12’s attendances compared with those of the season before, which we will show you in the next chart:

Comparing 2011/12 with 2010/11 we see a decline in Ligue 1 attendances of 4.4%. Combine that with France falling below the average of the Dutch Eredivisie, and some French may start to despair over the state of their league.

But, doing so would neglect one very important factor, which was the relegation of RC Lens in 2011. Sure, two more teams relegated (Arles Avignon and Monaco), but Lens’ 30,000+ average could not get made up for by the newcomers Ajaccio, Dijon, and Evian TG, all clubs that rank in the bottom quartile of the ranking.

If we make a clean comparison with only the 17 teams that were in Ligue 1 in both seasons, we see a small decline of just 0.5%. And when we consider that both Marseille and Saint-Etienne operated with reduced capacities this season, then things suddenly actually look quite rosy.

The ranking of the 20 clubs over the 2011/12 season looks as follows:

We see that, as we mentioned before, there are few clubs with extremely high or extremely low attendances, and that three-quarters of all clubs average between 11,000 and 22,000 visitors per game. The year before this was only half of the teams, so Ligue 1 has become more egalitarian.

The exceptions are Paris Saint-Germain, Marseille and Lyon on the upper side, and Nice and Ajaccio on the lower side. Especially the first place of Paris Saint-Germain attracts the attention as they only ranked fourth last year.

The next chart, which shows the growth of attendances per club, is arguably the most interesting of all as it shows some pretty strong movements.

First of all it is clear that Paris-SG’s ambitions and improved results have really warmed up the fickle Parisian public. Almost 50% more people saw the team play this year.

The decline in Marseille’s attendances is just as striking, but this was, as we mentioned, because Stade Vélodrome‘s capacity was capped to 42,000 due to renovation works. Without these works Marseille would likely have still topped the ranking, though its poor form would probably not have prevented some decline in attendances.

Saint-Etienne’s capacity was limited to just under 27,000, also due to renovation works, but hardly any of their attendances reached this number this year. Still, nobody likes watching football at a construction site.

More worryingly are the steep declines of Bordeaux and Rennes. Their seasons were far from spectacular, but neither awful as they both challenged for European football (though Bordeaux spent most season mid-table). Nor were their seasons much worse than the seasons before, when both recorded significantly better attendances.

Most notable among the risers is Valenciennes with a 32% increase, which can be explained by the opening of the new Stade du Hainaut. One wonders though whether club officials are really happy with the increase, or whether they had hoped that the club would record averages much closer to 20,000. They probably did considering they built a stadium with 25,000 seats.

Other attendances that look good at first sight, but make you wonder at second are those of champions Montpellier. Is an increase of 6.2% really that good for a team that has been top of the table for most of the season and has a stadium with a lot of free capacity?

The increases in attendances of Auxerre, Nice, and Sochaux are perfect examples of teams that started badly, ended up in the relegation zone, but put on a fight, set up a run of good results, and attracted a public that got behind the team. Nice and Sochaux in the end survived.

Caen would be almost  the exact opposite, with a boring season that saw them in save waters around 13th place most of the season, but a sudden loss of form meant a drop in the relegation zone on the last day of the season.

So how well do French clubs fill up their stadiums?

There is not much what really catches the eye here, apart, perhaps, from the fact that especially the stadiums with a capacity of between 25,000 and 30,000 have remained very empty this season, while the stadiums with a capacity of between 15,000 and 20,000 have filled up rather well.

What’s more, many of the stadiums that have low occupancy rates were used in the 1998 World Cup. Bordeaux’s Stade Chaban-Delmas, Montpellier’s Stade de la Mosson, and Toulouse’s Stadium Toulouse stayed particularly empty. Then there are the stadiums of Nantes and Lens in Ligue 2, and if it had not been for Paris-SG’s Qatari investment and Saint-Etienne’s reduced capacity, then these clubs would have similar occupancy rates. So let’s hope that the investments in Euro 2016 do pay out in higher attendances.

Normally we would accompany the above chart with that of the number of sold out matches, but there is not much to show there. Only Marseille and Evian TG sold out more than 3 home matches, and none more than 7.

More interesting is the development of attendances over the season, especially in combination with their volatility, that is, the extent to which attendances move up and down. The first chart shows the 10 clubs with the least movement in their attendances. The numbers at the bottom are the 19 home matches the clubs played this season.

If you compare this chart with, for example, the Premier League, than it strikes that the chart of France’s least volatile clubs looks very similar to that of England’s most volatile clubs.

One therefore wonders what the second chart, that with France’s most volatile clubs, looks like. Well, the lines are indeed all over the place:

For example, the attendances of the clubs with the highest volatility,which are Montpellier, Auxerre, and Bordeaux, would from any home match to the next move up or down by 40% to 50%.

Actually, Toulouse’s attendances would move even more, but we have doubts about the accuracy of their published numbers. I mean, doubling attendances when Marseille comes to visit is nothing strange, but when Evian, Valenciennes, or Brest do, we become suspicious.

Other things we can witness in the charts are the mentioned-before surges of Sochaux, Auxerre, and Nice, the increasing popularity of Paris Saint-Germain, and the very late rise in attendances of Montpellier.

On the contrary, Marseille’s, Lille’s, and Lorient’s attendances were the most stable with match-to-match movements of between 2% and 6%.

So what brings the future for France? Well, a lot of interesting things.

Next season will see Auxerre, Dijon and Caen disappear from Ligue 1, and get replaced by Bastia, Reims and Troyes. It is hard to predict if this is a net benefit, but our guess is that it will likely be.

In the end, however, Ligue 1 would really benefit from the return of Lens, though it is more likely that it will first see the return of the poorly-attended Stade Louis II.

A bigger benefit though, will likely be the opening of Lille’s Grand Stade Métropole, which will become France’s largest club stadium. While it is unlikely that the club will fill all 50,000 seats for every match, it would not be too bold to suggest that attendances will move up considerably. As a result one may expect France’s average to move towards, or even over, the 20,000 again.

In the medium to long term we are very much looking at the projects that are currently in progress for Euro 2016. The obligatory upgrade of stadiums has resulted in three complete new stadiums that are currently being built (Bordeaux, Lyon, and Nice), and a further three that are getting renovated (Marseille, Saint-Etienne, and Toulouse). It is likely that after the Euros something more significant will happen to Parc de Princes.

As a result, in a few years time all of France’s top teams will be playing in a new and modern arena and it will therefore be interesting to see how this will affect attendances. Of course, they will likely go up, but it is anyone’s guess whether this will just be a, say 20%, increase, or if it will have a lasting effect on the complete league and give France a proper push to challenge with Europe’s top league.

The 2011/12 Ligue 1 season in attendances

This is part of three of our series that analyses the attendances of Europe’s six major leagues over the 2011/12 season. After our general comparison and the Premier League, it is now the turn of the Bundesliga. Just as the Premier League though, the Bundesliga is not offering many obvious surprises if it comes to attendances. Attendances are high and therefore very much reflect the stadium capacities, so the devil is in the detail.

Let’s first recap what we found in our comparison of the six leagues. We found, not surprisingly, that the Bundesliga is still by far the best-attended league in Europe. It averaged 45,116 spectators per match and sold 92.65% of all tickets (just beating the Premier League).

It furthermore (almost) sold out a spectacular 53% of the matches and it was the only league in Europe where every club sold out at least one match. Having said that, there were only two clubs that sold out every match of the season, less than in the Premier League.

Finally, attendances in the Bundesliga proved to be very stable, though not as stable as the Premier League. The Bundesliga had a particular slump in attendances mid-season, but, as all leagues, rallied towards the end.

Before we give you a break-down by club, we start with a simple comparison of this season’s league average with last season’s average.

A comparison of the average of all Bundesliga clubs shows an increase of 5.8% in attendances, which is great, however not completely fair as the two new teams, Hertha and Augsburg, average (somewhat) higher attendances than the ones that left, Eintracht Frankfurt and St Pauli. If we adjust for this and only look at the 16 teams that played in the Bundesliga in both seasons, we see an increase of 4.6%. So still very impressive.

If we break that down by club, it looks like this:

The number above each column is the ranking of each club compared to the others.

As mentioned before, there is few that surprises here. We all know that Dortmund has the highest attendances of Germany (of Europe actually), and it is also no surprise that Freiburg ranks bottom as the MAGE-SOLAR-Stadion is by far the smallest of the 18 stadiums.

If we had to pick something to make a headline, it would probably be Hertha’s still very decent attendances despite a dreadful season. But then, so were the attendances of the other two clubs that relegated, Kaiserslautern and Köln.

There is one other thing that actually catches the eye, though you need to have a few more numbers (which we do). We have mentioned in earlier articles that it may actually be better to look at median attendances instead of averages to get a better idea of the “typical attendance”. We usually see that the median is lower than the average, because a few very high attendances tend to pull up the average. We see, however, the opposite in the Bundesliga. This is because most clubs generally operate close to full capacity, but a few low attendances pull the average down. The exception is Hertha, which has of course a lot of free capacity, and hence a few high attendances pull their average up.

Now let’s have a look at how club attendances compare with last season. We only include the clubs that played Bundesliga in both seasons:

And here is where things suddenly start to get interesting. Where we might have excepted a very solid growth across the board, we actually see a lot of minuses in the chart. More specifically, 9 out of 16 clubs saw attendances decline, Bayern’s stayed the same (always sold out), and only 6 clubs saw attendances increase.

But those 6 clubs do attract the attention, because 3 of them (Gladbach, Mainz, and Stuttgart) recorded double-digit growth, and one more (Bremen) almost double-digit growth. What happened here?

Well, Mainz moved into a new stadium, replacing the smaller Bruchwegstadion for the larger Coface Arena. Stuttgart’s Mercedes-Benz Arena underwent a major redevelopment, which meant a reduced capacity last season and a higher capacity this season. Bremen and their Weserstadion are a similar story as Stuttgart, but on a smaller scale.

Borussia Mönchengladbach’s growth, on the other hand, is purely autonomous and mostly due to the club’s massively increased performance this season.

So how much of the 4.6% Bundesliga growth is driven by those three clubs that expanded their stadiums? Well, exactly 4.6%, which means that without these three, the average attendance would have stayed exactly the same.

Which, of course, makes sense and takes nothing away from the Bundesliga’s impressive growth. When you sell 93% of all tickets then the only way average attendances can further increase is by expanding stadiums, because every club selling out every match is simply unrealistic, there will always be some fluctuations up and down.

So which clubs have still some free capacity left? That is, what are the occupancy rates of the clubs? The complete columns are the capacities of each stadium and the blue part the average attendances.

The odd one out seems Hertha BSC, but they obviously have the very large Olympiastadion to fill. The only other clubs that have an occupancy rate of less than 90% are Kaiserslautern and Nürnberg.

It is probably most interesting comparing these figures with those of the Premier League. While both leagues have a similar overall occupancy rate (93%), the Premier League has more clubs with an occupancy rate close to 100%, but also more with a rate lower than 90%. In the Bundesliga, on the other hand, most occupancy rates hover somewhere in the 90%-range.

A related figure is the number of sold out matches, more precisely the number of matches with an occupancy rate of 97% or higher.

These numbers probably somewhat overstate the number of matches that were properly sold out. Capacity and attendances figures tend to be very precise in Germany, and we also know that away ends generally sell out. Which means that if an attendance is a few hundred short of the capacity, it is likely not a sold out match, whereas it would be in other countries. Dortmund, for example, did not technically sell out all their home matches, though Bayern did.

All clubs did sell out at least one home match and in these cases Bayern was always one of the visitors. In fact, they have not seen an empty seat home or away in the Bundesliga for at least two years now (when we have time we might try to find out their exact run, which could be much longer).

Our final analysis looks at how attendances developed over the season and how much they fluctuate. To keep things easy on the eye we start with the nine clubs with the attendances that fluctuated the least. The count at the bottom of the chart are the 17 home matches in chronological order.

And here the chart for the clubs with the more volatile attendances:

The tree teams with the most fluctuating attendances (based on the standard deviation) were, not surprisingly, Herha BSC, Kaiserslautern, and Nürnberg. After all, if you have a lot of free capacity, it is easier to fluctuate both up and down, whereas teams that normally operate close to full capacity only have downward pressure.

Bayer Leverkusen in fourth place is possibly more surprising considering the stature of the club combined with the small BayArena. Still, their attendances fluctuate considerably and the Leverkusen fans may therefore be the most appropriate nominee for most fickle fans in the Bundesliga.

When we look closer at all the fluctuations it seems that they are more fuelled by the opponent than performance. Gladbach may be the exception as attendances clearly move up after their good start of the season. The relegation strugglers typically have a mid-season slump, but then rally towards the end.

So what brings the future for the Bundesliga? Will attendances continue to grow, will they stabilise, or might they even decline?

Next season will see three clubs with high attendances disappear from the Bundesliga (Hertha, Kaiserslautern, and Köln), and being replaced with two (Düsseldorf and Frankfurt) that will likely attract attendances of in the 40,000s and one (Greuther Fürth) that is limited to the Trolli ARENA‘s capacity of 15,000.

Which means that the base is already lower, and therefore other attendances need to grow to make up. However, as we’ve just seen, opportunity for autonomous growth is very limited, which means that various clubs have to start selling out more regularly, or that Nürnberg has to do a much better job in filling up the easyCredit-Stadion.

It therefore would not be unreasonable to suggest that we are going to see some stagnation or a small decline next year. There is nothing wrong with that, of course.

Long-term growth, then, will have to come from expanding stadiums. But of the current Bundesliga clubs only Greuther Fürth has concrete plans to move to a new stadium, and it won’t be finished before 2014 (and it is doubtful whether it still plays Bundesliga then).

When we look at the other Bundesliga stadiums it strikes that they are very much finished. In particular Germany’s more established clubs all have reasonably new stadiums without running tracks, with closed corners, a roof, and with capacities of 50,000 or higher. Most of these stadiums have therefore few expansion options, and even if they did, upgrading a stadium to a capacity of over 60,000 is very expensive.

Both Bayern and Schalke, for example, could possibly add another 10 to 15,000 places to the Allianz Arena and Veltins Arena, but this will either be impossible from a technical point of view or just too expensive.

Expansions will therefore have to come from the smaller stadiums, the 30,000-category, but these clubs are currently not selling out consistently enough to justify such investment. The only club left with an old stadium is Freiburg, and though it has been desiring a move to a new stadium for years, few progress has been made.

Attendances in the Bundesliga will therefore mainly become a function of which teams are playing in the league combined with some smaller autonomous fluctuations. They will then, for example, move up when a club with a lot of free capacity has a good season (which happened with Gladbach this year).

On the other hand, there is also no indication that attendances will significantly decline any time soon as the Bundesliga is still as popular as ever, and its status as the best-attended league in Europe will therefore likely remain unthreatened for many years to come.

The 2011/12 Bundesliga season in attendances

Last week we compared the attendances of Europe’s major leagues, and now we take the opportunity to zoom in on each of these leagues, starting with the Premier League.

In our previous article we concluded that average attendances in the Premier League are second in Europe only trailing the Bundesliga, that stadiums are very well-filled with over 92% of seats sold (similar to the Bundesliga), that more than half of all matches were sold out, and that there were four teams selling out all their matches and four teams selling out none.

We also saw that the attendances of Premier League teams were very stable, in fact, the most stable of Europe with generally few fluctuations. There was a bit of a slow start, but they moved up nicely toward the holidays fixtures and then again toward the end of the season.

Before we start giving you a break-down per club, let’s first make a quick comparison with last season. On the left the difference in attendances if we look at all teams in the league:

If we look at this chart and notice a decrease in attendances of almost 2%, we might be inclined to write alarming headlines and wonder what is going wrong with English football.

However, that would not be completely fair. After all, the 20 Premier League teams of the 2011/12 season are not the same as the 20 of the 2010/11 season. Birmingham, Blackpool, and West Ham were relegated and replaced by Norwich, QPR, and Swansea, and those latter three tend to attract on average less fans than the former three.

So when we look at the 17 teams that played in the Premier League in both seasons (in the chart on the right), we see that the decline has been very small and hardly significant. It is the good old stable Premier League again, though that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any teams with problems, which we will see later.

First of all, the ranking of this season’s averages by club:

There are few surprises at the top of the ranking as many of these clubs tend to sell out most matches and attendances merely reflect the capacities of the stadiums.

At the bottom of the ranking we see that QPR had the lowest average followed by Wigan, Swansea and the two relegation strugglers from the north-west of England. In the defence of QPR and Swansea it has to be said that they have been the only two of these five teams to have regularly sold out matches.

More interesting though are the differences in comparison with last season.

Man United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham were already selling out most matches and have continued to do so. Manchester City have made the leap from now-and-then selling out to rather consistently selling out.

Liverpool fans have been more loyal this year than the last. Whereas last season attendances dropped quickly after a poor run of results, this season Anfield kept selling out until much further in the season. Crowds only decreased in the last few home matches.

Newcastle has seen the clear results of their great form and attracted almost 5% more fans to the St James’ Park. The only club that recorded a double-digit growth was Wigan though. The club tends to get a lot of stick for their poor crowds and one may argue that the growth comes from a low base, but an 11% growth is impressive nonetheless.

At the other end of the spectrum we encounter a few clubs that are the almost opposite of Wigan and recorded a decline in attendances of nearly 10%. These clubs are Blackburn, Aston Villa, and to a slightly lesser extent Everton and Wolves.

Wolves have got an excuse though as Molineux had a reduced capacity due to the redevelopment of the Stan Cullis Stand. The problems and negativity surrounding Blackburn this season have been well-documented and clearly had their effect on enthusiasm.

Aston Villa had a very poor season, but Everton did just fine and one may assume that the club’s fans have gotten used to the team’s slow start by now.

To get a better perspective of these average we need to see them as a percentage of the stadium’s capacity, that is, how well do the clubs fill their stadiums? Let’s refer to this as the occupancy rate.

We already mentioned that while QPR’s and Swansea’s attendances averaged amongst the lowest, they do have very decent occupancy rates. Their problem is mainly that their stadiums are very small, though from that point of view one can argue that QPR’s rate of 94% is not even that impressive.

Blackburn has done worst in filling their stadium, followed by Wigan and Aston Villa. These were the only clubs that were not able to sell 80% of their tickets, which leads us to the general conclusion that occupancy rates in the Premier League are just very good.

Which also does not come as much of a surprise as most of these clubs possess modern stadiums that were often downscaled when they got built or redeveloped back in the 1990s and 2000s.

To complement the picture we have the number of sold out matches per club, or to be more precise, the number of matches that had an occupancy rate of at least 97%.

There are very few surprises here, possibly apart from the fact that even the likes of Man United and Liverpool could not attract enough people to sell out Villa Park, Ewood Park, the Reebok Stadium and the DW Stadium.

Another analysis we made is to look at how attendances developed over the season. As putting 20 teams in one chart would get a little messy we have split them up in the ten with the least up and down movement and the ten with the most movement.

First the boring ones with the least movement:

There is few what catches the eye here, perhaps apart from Liverpool’s slight dip in attendances around the end of the season. Most of these club had relatively few movement of attendances. One could say that these have the most loyal fans, however that would be a bit rash to do so on the basis of only one season and if you are operating close to full capacity you automatically have little movement.

Man United and Arsenal had the least movement of all, in both cases the standard deviation of the movements was less than half a percent, which means that for any next match one would not expect a movement up or down of more than half a percent.

These clubs were followed by Norwich, Spurs, Man City and Chelsea with all standard deviations just over 1%.

The next chart of the clubs with the most movement gives a whole different picture:

What we see is a clear performance effect at Newcastle, where attendances moved up significantly after fans got the idea that it might turn into an exciting season for them. Wigan attendances also seemed to move up as soon as the club started on a good run of results toward the end of the season.

Most of the movements, however, do not seem to have been caused by performance, but more so by the opponent or just plain randomness. We do see that most clubs recorded their highest attendance at the end of the season, often their last home match, with the exception of Wolves who had of course already been relegated by then.

One could argue that these clubs have the most fickle fans, but again that would not be fair to do so on the basis of just one season. Still, if we want to make the ranking, we see that Bolton Wanderers had by far the most fickle fans this season. The standard deviation of the attendance movements suggests that they are expected to go up or down by 17% from one match to the next.

Bolton is followed by Blackburn, Everton, Wigan, and Sunderland with all standard deviations of over 10% (Everton was the only of these five that recorded a standard deviation lower than 10% last season. Bolton was again top of the list).

Now we’ve looked at the past, one might also want to think about the future. What’s next for the Premier League?

Let’s first look at the short term, that is, next season. If we look at the teams that have relegated, Blackburn, Bolton, and Wolves, we are talking about the numbers 13, 16, and 17 of the attendance ranking with an average of about 24,000. These will be replaced by Reading, Southampton, and West Ham United.

Taking into account this season’s attendances of these clubs and the ones they had in their last season in the Premier League it would not be unreasonable to expect an average of 30,000, which is significantly higher than that of the relegated ones. Which means attendances should move up next season.

If we talk about normal growth, we come across the problem that the Premier League already operates at 92% of capacity, which means opportunities are limited. It therefore mainly depends on the likes of Villa, Everton, Newcastle, and Sunderland how attendances will develop. If these teams have good seasons, they will likely move up, but it is also not unreasonable to expect that the decline of Villa’s and Everton’s attendances will continue next season.

In the long term growth will therefore have to come from expanding the stadiums of teams that are currently at full capacity. Swansea has the most concrete plans to expand the Liberty Stadium to 30,000 seats, while Fulham and West Brom are looking to go to a similar number by adding about 5,000 seats to Craven Cottage and the Hawthorns. It is however far from sure that all will play for regular sold out houses with increased capacities.

Norwich has stated to only consider expanding Carrow Road after having played for three consecutive years in the Premier League, while Stoke seems to have abandoned plans for expanding the Britannia Stadium.

Real growth will therefore have to come from the three big teams that are currently looking to build a new stadium or redevelop an existing one: Chelsea, Liverpool, and Spurs. Plans we have regularly reported on. In all cases this would result in capacities ranging from 55,000 to 60,000 and it is not unreasonable to suggest that they would be able to fill these on a regular basis. The plans of Manchester City to expand the Etihad Stadium to over 70,000 seats are currently too vague to seriously take into account.

So if we assume the most positive scenario and imagine planning permission and sufficient funding for all these clubs to execute their stadium plans, then we look at a long term average of around 41,000 to 42,000 fans per game, which would be a very decent increase of 20%, but insufficient to really challenge the Bundesliga.

The 2011/12 Premier League season in attendances

This season we have meticulously recorded the attendances of Europe’s major leagues. No easy task, especially in the southern parts of Europe, but we managed and are now ready to present our analysis. Some of the outcomes are fairly well-known, but we think we can also show you some analysis that you have not seen before.

When we talk about Europe’s major leagues, we talk about England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, and Holland. Whether Holland should be in there can be debated, but from an attendance point of view it certainly does. You will see why.

Bear in mind to interpret the statistics we are going to present as rough numbers as there is no such thing as an exact attendance statistic¹.

Let’s start with the obvious, which are the annual averages of each country. These are likely figures you have already seen before.

The Bundesliga is the absolute king of attendances with an average topping 45,000, almost a quarter more than the Premier League who are second on the list. What is most striking, perhaps, is the small difference between the bottom three countries and that the Dutch Eredivisie has passed the French Ligue 1 in terms of attendances.

That said, presenting averages is all well, but perhaps not as good a measure if we want to know how many spectators a “typical” match attracts. After all, most leagues have several big teams with large stadiums pulling up the average.

Statistics buffs will already know that instead of looking at the average it is in this case better to look at the median. Statistical explanation: say you have 380 matches a year (Premier League) and you rank the attendances from lowest to highest, than the median is the attendance exactly in the middle, so the 190th, which makes it your typical attendance².

We present you the medians in the next table along with the lowest and highest attendance recorded, as well as the attendances at the first quartile (the 96th attendance in the ranking of 380 attendances, i.e. the one at 25%) and the third quartile (the one at 75%, or the 285th of 380 attendances).

We see what we already predicted: that median attendances are lower than the averages, though the difference is very small for the Bundesliga. This is because the few Bundesliga clubs that pull up the average are balanced by quite a few stadiums that have a capacity of around 30,000.

The reason we included the first and third quartile is that it gives us a good sense of the distribution of the attendances. After all, one can get to an average of 30,000 through 20 clubs with average attendances of around 30,000, or 10 with averages of 10,000 and 10 with averages of 50,000.

What we see it that the Premier League, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 have a third quartile that is less than double the first quartile, which means that there is a relatively even playing field. The Primera División, Serie A, and to a lesser extent the Eredivisie, all have a third quartile that lies more than twice as high as the first, which means that there is a relatively big difference between the higher and lower attendances.

A logical next step is to look at how well the clubs in each country are able to fill their stadiums. In the next chart you see the same blue attendance columns as in the first chart, however now part of a larger white column, which is the average capacity of the stadiums. The percentage is the average attendance divided by the average capacity. Let’s call this the occupancy rate.

The Bundesliga and Premier League clubs were all able to sell over 92% of their seats, followed closely by the Dutch with almost 91%. No wonder, as these three leagues consist mainly of new or redeveloped stadiums that offer good facilities. What’s more, during these redevelopments capacity often got scaled back as a full stadium was considered more important than a large stadium.

Worryingly though, is the occupancy rate of the Serie A. It narrowly manages to fill half of all seats, and one cannot avoid the conclusion that it urgently needs to renovate and reduce the capacity of its stadiums. Which is exactly what Juventus did, the only exception in the Serie A with an occupancy rate of over 90%.

Related to the occupancy rate is the percentage of sold out matches. We were actually somewhat reluctant to report on this as it is often hard to determine when a match is exactly sold out. After some analysis we however think that an occupancy rate of 97% more or less captures³ a sold out match, and the broad picture is still interesting enough to report on.

Not much of a different picture here, with again the Bundesliga and Premier League on top with over half of all matches sold out. The following chart complements the picture:

All Bundesliga clubs sold out at least one home match (versus FC Bayern), and there are even a few that sold out all of them, though not in the Primera División, Serie A, and Ligue 1.

Sold out figures for Ligue 1 may actually be slightly better than they seem as quite a few clubs recorded its highest occupancy rate just below the 97% threshold.

Another thing we can analyse is how attendances developed over the year. What one might expect are high attendances at the start of the season (early season enthusiasm), then a slight mid-season dip, and increasing attendances toward the last and exciting part of the season.

The following chart shows how the average attendances change over the either 17 or 19 home matches the teams played this season.

Our hypothesis is about right for the Bundesliga, Serie A, and Ligue 1. Attendances in the Premier League are quite evenly divided over the year, though there is a clear increase at the end of the year. That said, the on average second best visited home match in England was the 9th home match. Indeed, the late-December holiday fixtures.

What is clear is that in all leagues attendances increased significantly towards the end. In four of the six leagues the best attended home match was the last one. In Ligue 1 it was the second to last, whereas the last home match in the Primera División was the second best attended.

Also noticeable are the slow starts of the Premier League and in particular the Eredivisie. They both recorded their lowest attendances at the start of the season, while the other leagues had their lowest attendances mainly mid-season.

What furthermore catches the eye is that in all leagues there was a significant dip at either the 10th or 11th home match. What happened? Well, someone living in Europe will probably look back at last winter as pleasantly mild. Except for about two very nasty weeks in early February when in most of Western Europe temperatures dropped to below zero, often accompanied by quite a bit of snow.

The dip you see were those weeks, and likely would have been far more pronounced if clubs had not taken season tickets as a given and recorded the actual people that got in. Hence the relatively small decline in season ticket heavy Holland, whereas news reports indicated many half empty stadiums.

Finally, when one looks at the lines they seem to be far more even in some leagues than in others. Which brings us to our last analysis: the volatility of attendances in each country. In popular terms one might also define this as the fickleness of fans in each country, with the league with the attendances moving up and down the most having the most fickle fans⁴.

For this, we have calculated the standard deviation of each league, which basically measures what change (increase or decrease) one might expect from each home match to the next.

It is clear that attendances are most volatile in the Serie A. What we see there is that a lot more people show up when such teams as Juve and the Milan clubs come to town, and as most stadiums have a lot of free capacity it is common to see large differences per match.

We also see that attendances in the Premier League are more stable than the Bundesliga, partly because the number of sold out matches in Germany is divided over more clubs than in England. A visit of Bayern, for example, is a guaranteed sold out, whereas this is not the case for a Manchester United or Liverpool.

In the next couple of weeks we will zoom in from this high-level analysis to a detailed analysis of each of these countries, of course including a break-down of attendances by club. For any questions regarding this analysis, feel free to use the comment section below.

 
¹ We could write a long essay about all the problems and assumptions involved in measuring attendances, but just trust us there are loads of them.
² Actually the median is the average of the 190th and 191st, but let’s not complicate things too much.
³ Problems are that the capacity of a stadium is not necessarily the same as the number of available tickets (e.g. safety measures can reduce this) and the way clubs report their attendances can also affect their occupancy rate. Still, an occupancy rate of 97% includes the large majority of matches that we know were sold out.
⁴ Of course, this statistic not only measures fan loyalty, but is influenced by other factors as well.

The 2011/12 season in attendances

There are less than 40 days to go before the start of Euro 2012, but instead of looking ahead, we are taking the opportunity to look back. Because when on the 8th of June Poland and Greece kick-off the tournament, most people will have all but forgotten about what went before.

Over a period of almost two years the participating teams fought out a tense qualification campaign, mixed up with a series of friendlies to improve form. Few of us, however, have followed the matches close enough to get a good overview of which team played at which stadiums. Did Italy play its home matches at the Stadio Olimpico or San Siro? How many venues did Portugal use in its campaign? Did England really only play at Wembley Stadium? We will tell you the answers.

Let’s start with a chart. The pie chart on the left shows the venues used in the qualification campaign. The pie on the right the venues used in all matches, so including friendlies. The slices are the venues, the number is the number of matches at each venue (which also determines the size of the slices). Our analysis follows below.

Let’s first take Portugal as an example to further clarify the chart. In their qualifying campaign (left column) they have played at three different stadiums.  Two matches were played at Estádio do Dragão, one at Estádio da Luz, and one at Estádio D. Afonso Henriques.

Portugal furthermore played another six friendlies at home, two at Estádio da Luz (so three matches in total), two at Estádio Municipal de Leiria, and the other two in Aveiro and Faro. This all results in the distribution as seen in the chart in the second column.

If we take a high-level look at all the charts, we can distinguish two extremes: countries that play all their matches at one venue, and countries that operate a rotating policy.

Countries that heavily rely on one stadium are England (Wembley Stadium), Ireland (Aviva Stadium), Denmark (Parken), France (Stade de France), Greece (Karaiskakis Stadium), and Sweden (Råsunda Stadium). Some of these countries allocate a few friendlies to smaller stadiums (e.g. Greece and Sweden), others don’t (England and Ireland).

Allocating all matches to one stadium makes of course sense if the football association owns that stadium. After all, the English and Irish FA have to earn back the money they invested in the construction of their recently built stadiums. In other cases, such as Denmark and Greece, the choice may merely be a matter of the stadium being the best match in terms of expected attendances and facilities needed.

On the other extreme we have the rotators, most notably Germany and Spain, and to a lesser extent Italy and Portugal. But apart from using a rotating policy, there is little that Germany and Spain have in common.

Germany, lacking a national stadium, operates an official rotating policy that gives all large stadiums in the country the chance to host matches of the national team. The national team is popular, hence the relatively large number of home friendlies (6). We see a similar large number of home friendlies in other countries where the national team is popular such as England, Denmark, and the Netherlands.

In Spain, on the other hand, the national team fails to attract big crowds – even after their World Cup win – and internationals are therefore typically rotated amongst the smaller stadiums of the country, often in Segunda División cities. We see a similar pattern in Italy. Stadiums that have been used in the past two years by these two countries include Estadio de Los Cármenes (Granada) Estadio José Rico Pérez (Alicante), Estadio La Rosaleda (Málaga), Stadio Artemio Franchi (Florence), Stadio Alberto Braglia (Modena), and Stadio San Nicola (Bari).

Both countries have also played relatively few friendlies at home, with Spain having monetised its successes in countries such as Costa Rica and Venezuela, and Italy regularly playing at neutral soil such as in Austria or Switzerland. The exception is the odd high-profile friendly when the football associations do refer back to a Bernabéu or Olimpico.

Portugal relies a little more on a few flagship venues (Estádio da Luz and Dragão), but also puts its Euro 2004 venues to good use by letting them host friendlies.

Then there are the countries that hover somewhat in between these extremes. The Netherlands and Russia, for example, rely on a few large stadiums (with the Amsterdam ArenA and Luzhniki a touch more popular). The Czech Republic and Croatia are harder to categorise, but seem to rely on one larger stadium (Generali Arena and Stadion Maksimir) with some rotating with smaller stadiums.

The question, of course, is whether one approach is better than the other. Those in favour of rotating might argue that citizens of every part of the country should have the chance to see their national team. Others may say that internationals are the perfect opportunity to showcase the country and should therefore offer the best and largest stadium there is.

How do you feel about the policies of your country?

* Note: the friendlies include the ones still to be played in May and June in preparation of the Euros. We have left Poland and the Ukraine out of the analysis as they have primarily been testing their new venues.

Photos: © Flickr user Nicolas Babaian

The road to Euro 2012 – and the stadiums

Last month we took a look at the 20 Premier League stadiums. This month we will look at the statistics of the 18 Bundesliga stadiums.

So to get started with their most obvious feature: the Bundesliga stadiums are large, almost without exception. Whereas the Premier League stadiums averaged a capacity of 37,559, the Bundesliga stadiums add up another 11,000 places, resulting in an average capacity of 48,649 places per stadium.

The largest stadium in the Bundesliga is Dortmund’s Signal Iduna Park with a capacity of 80,720, followed by Berlin’s Olympiastadion (74,064) and Munich’s Allianz Arena (69,901). The smallest stadium is Freiburg’s MAGE-SOLAR-Stadion, which can hold 24,000 fans, followed by a group of four stadiums with a capacity of around 30,000.

The difference with the Premier League, which has nine stadiums with a capacity below 30,000, is striking. On top of this the Bundesliga has eight stadiums with a capacity of 50,000 or more, whereas the Premier League has only three.

However, it is important to bear in mind that a large part of the Bundesliga capacity consists of standing areas, almost 25% in fact. Which means that the average seating capacity of 37,797 is almost the same as in the Premier League.

Dortmund’s 25,000-terrace counts as the biggest standing area in Europe, which means that Berlin’s Olympiastadion – which does not have any standing areas – has the most seats of all Bundesliga stadiums. But also the Allianz Arena has more seats than Signal Iduna Park.

Apart from Dortmund, Mönchengladbach’s Borussia-Park and Kaiserslautern’s Fritz-Walter-Stadion also hold more than 15,000 standing places. But it are the MAGE-SOLAR-Stadion and Mainz’s Coface Arena that have the highest percentage of standing places, both topping 40%.

Then age. With the Premier League stadiums we could make a very clear divide between “old” (built before 1914) and “new” (built after 1996) stadiums. We see a similar divide in Germany, though both old and new stadiums are “newer”.

Only one of the Bundesliga stadiums, the Weserstadion, was built before the First World War, and another one, the Fritz-Walter-Stadion, just after. In a period in which there was few construction in England, a total of seven new Bundesliga stadiums were completed: three in the period between 1928 and 1936, and four between 1954 and 1974.

After 1974 no new stadiums were built until the 2000s, which largely coincides with the general drought of new stadiums in Europe in that period. However, whereas in many countries the first modern-age stadiums were built in the mid to late 1990s, it took until 2000 for the first newly built German stadium to open (the Imtech Arena).

Of course, all “old” stadiums have been completely redeveloped in the meantime, and it is in some cases even debatable whether a stadium is in fact “new” or “old”.

But in the end it does not matter if you have a big stadium if you cannot fill it every other week. It turns out though, that there is not much of a problem there, as the Bundesliga clubs sell on average 92% of their tickets.

That’s about the same percentage as in the Premier League, though the Premier League does have more clubs selling out on a consistent basis (half of them versus a third in the Bundesliga).

FC Bayern is the only club that has sold out all of its home matches this season, with Dortmund and Schalke selling out every apart from the odd match, and Augsburg and Mainz the far majority.

Hertha BSC has the worst occupancy rate, though has a large stadium too fill and relative to performance does not do bad at all. 1. FC Nürnberg is the only club not to have sold out one match this season, but still gets to host Bayern, which in Germany is almost a guaranteed sell-out.

If we look closer at the data, it does appear as if the newer stadiums attract higher attendances than the older ones, though there is not enough data to make hard conclusions. What we can say is that there does not seem to be any difference caused by size, as larger and smaller stadiums have similar occupancy rates.

The next league we will investigate will be the Primera División, which promises to be a rather different affair than the Premier League and Bundesliga.

The Bundesliga Stadiums in Numbers