Italian crowds

Can someone explain why they are so low? Just looking at the Udinese and Inter games over the past couple of day's, both stadiums were half empty.

What is the explanation for these poor attendances? Tickets too expensive? Crowd trouble/violence? TV deals? Apathy?

Also what is being done to try and reverse this trend.

There are a lot of good players on show in the league, and it's a shame that the fans don't seem to turn out for the game in the way they used to.

Probably a combination of all the above...

The fact Serie A has also lost some of its sparkle after the dominance it had after Italia 90... probably has something to do with it too... their currency being a bag of wank and the credit crunch possibly doesn't help either.

I think the German and English top leagues are amongst the best?

Juventus for example don't have particularly good attendances for the size of the club and stadium, as a general rule.

The Bundesliga has the highest attendances in Europe. I think Dortmund regularly get 80,000 and a lot of the other clubs get 40, 000 +. It's a model for others to follow.

Serie A isn't as strong as it was a while back, but that doesn't really explain why the fans wouldn't turn out for the games.

Calidad wrote:The Bundesliga has the highest attendances in Europe. I think Dortmund regularly get 80,000 and a lot of the other clubs get 40, 000 +. It's a model for others to follow.

Serie A isn't as strong as it was a while back, but that doesn't really explain why the fans wouldn't turn out for the games.

Of course it does, it is an entertainment primarily, whether you accept it or not football fans are fickle, and there are a lot of people who go to be entertained, as opposed to follow religously.... use this analogy... if the theatre / cinema has some great acts, people pack the theatre out.... should the shows then become drab and of less quality audiences reduce, where a theatre can change venue a football team cannot...

Football is a luxury product.... and to sustain high demand it has to offer value for money, which through low attendances suggests one of two things... the quality isn't there or the tickets are at an inflated price... or a combination of the two... which i would argue is the accurate assessment, the Italian public have witnessed some of the worlds best players 10 years ago, playing some superb football.... they may ask themselves now, we pay a similiar amount of money yet the quality (or value for money) is not what is was....

The cheap tickets retains the German interest, and the turnover of players (new attraction like a theme park) in the EPL brings the fans back each season.... the EPL has out spent all other major leagues in the last few seasons bringing in players, although the primary goal is to create a better team... it draws in fans to watch as it gives them yet another reason to come along to the game.

What will be interesting is how our high ticket prices will affect attendances through what appears to be a reccession.

Football Retard wrote:Probably a combination of all the above...

The fact Serie A has also lost some of its sparkle after the dominance it had after Italia 90... probably has something to do with it too... their currency being a bag of wank and the credit crunch possibly doesn't help either.

I think the German and English top leagues are amongst the best?

Juventus for example don't have particularly good attendances for the size of the club and stadium, as a general rule.

the lack of sparkle compared to the 90's may play a part, but i don't think currency and credit crunch have much to do with it.

IMO
- Stadiums are getting old, and are poorly designed in most cases, with a running track on the outside making the fans further away from the pitch.
- lack of security and organisation in some stadiums means that families will turn up less. In England its the opposite, with very well run stadiums.
- Sky Italia covers practically every Serie A match on the weekends, which means there is less need for people to actually go and watch the games. Sad but true.

You mention Juventus. I think alot of their fans come from all over Italy, whilst most local people support Torino. The old Delle Alpi used to be on the outskirts of the city and was quite a poorly designed stadium, with the pitch being unviewable from certain seats.

BoBo Vieri 32 wrote:
You mention Juventus. I think alot of their fans come from all over Italy, whilst most local people support Torino. The old Delle Alpi used to be on the outskirts of the city and was quite a poorly designed stadium, with the pitch being unviewable from certain seats.

Yeap, that's right about Juve, they never really pulled big crowds in Turin, however they used to have many fans in almost every away game, due to the reason that you mentioned.

Dunno the numbers of Inter(yeah, I noticed that only 25 thousand contes attended the game against Anorthosis) but Milan's numbers are pretty good. Last year we had an average attendance of almost 60,000 which isn't that bad. This summer, we sold a decent amount of season tickets(close to 45,000) and our attendances have been pretty good, last weekend we had 65,000 against Sampdoria.

Napoli also draw big crowds but currently I think some tiers of their stadium cannot be used due to a ban or something(iirc).

To be honest it's been on a big drop for a while...though I think the start of this year has improved...

For example our attendances have improved already from last season...

Calidad...here's a site for you...it goes back to Serie A from about 2000/2001 to currently...so you can see rises and falls in attendances

http://digilander.libero.it/stadiapostcardsdgl/attendance.htm

Great site. Looking at some numbers:

Serie A 2007-2008:

Doria: 21.888
Genoa: 24.745

Serie A 2006-2007 :Doria: 19.036
Seria B: Genoa 19.934



It's clear who is the more loved team in the city.

If you know the match has been bought, it's a lot less interesting to watch it

Gone wrote:Great site. Looking at some numbers:

Serie A 2007-2008:

Doria: 21.888
Genoa: 24.745

Serie A 2006-2007 :Doria: 19.036
Seria B: Genoa 19.934



It's clear who is the more loved team in the city.

Well, considering one team is about 50-60 years older...it's not so bad isit?...I notice how you don't publish this seasons starting attendances, where ours is higher though? Our attendances are very close...you are picking at the finest things...we have one of the top 10 attendances in Italy, so I'm happy either way...

Btw...who did Genoa play in the UEFA Cup last night?

Football Genius wrote:Probably a combination of all the above...

The fact Serie A has also lost some of its sparkle after the dominance it had after Italia 90... probably has something to do with it too... their currency being a bag of wank and the credit crunch possibly doesn't help either.

I think the German and English top leagues are amongst the best?

Juventus for example don't have particularly good attendances for the size of the club and stadium, as a general rule.

Juve as explained already had a $h!t stadium and many more fans around italy than in turin itself. Not sure how their stadium is now.

But above all else you were right about the fickleness of fans and nowhere is it more apparent than in Italy. I have nothing against that as I don't particualr care about following a team I just enjoy going occasionally to a stadium and watching a game live. I share a season ticket with a mate of mine for Milan and some weeks when they are playing against some $h!t team neither of us can be bothered to go. We are sharing a ticket as it is very difficult to get a ticket for the big games, like the derby, juve, roma etc, and the season ticket is pretty cheap and gives us priority for the CL games (although of course not this year). Like the huge majority we don't go to away games, italy's a very long country, so it is an 8 hour drive from milan to rome (and rome is not even the furthest), and although you could fly down for the weekend there are not as many cheap flight companies as england. However there are fans that travel a lot, but it is a bit diffferent, e.g. Milan have supporters clubs in switzerland so these guys are even season ticket holders and travel 3 or 4 hours in one direction for every home game.

The san siro is a big stadium, about 85,000, so as soon as a not very big team comes to town there will be empty sections. If barcelona came to town you wouldn't be able to get a ticket easily but against a team from cyprus you could walk up to the ticket office 10 mins before kickoff and buy tickets.

The other thing about ticket prices is that I think in Italy they are about right. You pay about 25 GBP for middle tier of san siro for a big game. In england they are too expensive, but it means the club makes more money from gate receipts and spends that on better players and so on. In germany it is too cheap and leads to the germans whinging about the amount of money other leagues have when in fact they could have the most with the highest number of fans, biggest tv market and so on. They end up with worse players, not as many stars and so on.

BTW The euro is stronger than the pound.

GianDeano Zola wrote:

Gone wrote:Great site. Looking at some numbers:

Serie A 2007-2008:

Doria: 21.888
Genoa: 24.745

Serie A 2006-2007 :Doria: 19.036
Seria B: Genoa 19.934



It's clear who is the more loved team in the city.

Well, considering one team is about 50-60 years older...it's not so bad isit?...I notice how you don't publish this seasons starting attendances, where ours is higher though? Our attendances are very close...you are picking at the finest things...we have one of the top 10 attendances in Italy, so I'm happy either way...

Btw...who did Genoa play in the UEFA Cup last night?

Genoa is focused on Serie A. Playing in the CL next year will be much better then Doria playing in the UEFA Cup.

Cheers Deano. I guess looking at stats from previous seasons, they do tend to fluctuate a little, and some were never as high as I thought they used to be (i.e Udinese).

I think the capacity of the stadia is a good point. Many of them are simply too large. Roma/Lazio are never going to get 80,000 a week, same for Napoli.

Are there any plans to update any of the stadiums? I know Juve are moving to a new ground with a 40,000 capacity which sounds like a good idea. Inter are also moving?

Seems some of the Spanish clubs are also starting to update/move stadiums, i.e. Atletico, Valencia, Espanyol - the latter of which is downsizing.

I wonder if it is any coincidence that the leagues with the two best average attendances are the leagues with the best stadia, or perhaps it is down to the size of their populations?

For those interested in attendence info: this German site is top notch (click the desired league/competition & the click 'Zuschauer' ('attendence') from left hand menu):


http://www.weltfussball.de/kontinent_uebersicht/uefa/

excellent site.

Just briefly looking at the Bunesliga attendances, pretty much every club there fills out their ground.

Only Hertha's average is quite a bit under the full capacity, but even then, get get 40,000

Genoa in the Champions League .

Calidad wrote:Cheers Deano. I guess looking at stats from previous seasons, they do tend to fluctuate a little, and some were never as high as I thought they used to be (i.e Udinese).

I think the capacity of the stadia is a good point. Many of them are simply too large. Roma/Lazio are never going to get 80,000 a week, same for Napoli.

Are there any plans to update any of the stadiums? I know Juve are moving to a new ground with a 40,000 capacity which sounds like a good idea. Inter are also moving?

Seems some of the Spanish clubs are also starting to update/move stadiums, i.e. Atletico, Valencia, Espanyol - the latter of which is downsizing.

I wonder if it is any coincidence that the leagues with the two best average attendances are the leagues with the best stadia, or perhaps it is down to the size of their populations?

Rossi has encouraged our board to move to a new stadium since most of the Lazio fans are located in the north of Rome. On our current budget, it would be difficult to manage, but its definitely a good idea.

BoBo Vieri 32 wrote:

Calidad wrote:Cheers Deano. I guess looking at stats from previous seasons, they do tend to fluctuate a little, and some were never as high as I thought they used to be (i.e Udinese).

I think the capacity of the stadia is a good point. Many of them are simply too large. Roma/Lazio are never going to get 80,000 a week, same for Napoli.

Are there any plans to update any of the stadiums? I know Juve are moving to a new ground with a 40,000 capacity which sounds like a good idea. Inter are also moving?

Seems some of the Spanish clubs are also starting to update/move stadiums, i.e. Atletico, Valencia, Espanyol - the latter of which is downsizing.

I wonder if it is any coincidence that the leagues with the two best average attendances are the leagues with the best stadia, or perhaps it is down to the size of their populations?

Rossi has encouraged our board to move to a new stadium since most of the Lazio fans are located in the north of Rome. On our current budget, it would be difficult to manage, but its definitely a good idea.

http://www.stadiumguide.com/aquile.htm

I somehow don't see this happening.

Are Juve moving to a new stadium or are they redeveloping the Delle Alpi, the last I heard about it was that they were going to remove the running track and downgrade to a 40,000 seater stadium?

Gone wrote:Great site. Looking at some numbers:

Serie A 2007-2008:

Doria: 21.888
Genoa: 24.745

Serie A 2006-2007 :Doria: 19.036
Seria B: Genoa 19.934



It's clear who is the more loved team in the city.

Like most of you have pointed out the Stadia are $h!t and are in need of improving + security.

Italian Krauts