July 6 – The Bundesliga and Premier League will continue to dominate the business of football with their big and modern stadia; France, thanks to new stadia for Euro 2016 are getting better but need to do more, Spain and Italy are off the pace.
These are the basic conclusions of a research report by KPMG’s Football Benchmark team looking at the Big 5 European leagues and their stadia from a ‘demand’ perspective.
The report focussed on last season’s attendance figures, percentage capacities of stadia filled, and ticket prices. It also looked at the likely trends for the upcoming 2016/17 season.
The full report can be read at https://www.footballbenchmark.com/stadia_landscape_demand_focus_2016_2017. Below are highlights from their findings.
Bundesliga
- Second most popular sports league in the world, bettered only by the NFL
- Only football league with an average attendance above 40,000. In 2015/16 Bundesliga games attracted a per game average of 43,193 people.
- German clubs broaden their appeal by lowering their prices.
- The Bundesliga is only second to Premier League with a figure of 92%.
- In the 2016/17 season average attendances might fall due to the fact that relegated VfB Stuttgart and Hannover 96 have a combined stadium capacity of 109,441, around 41,000 more than promoted SC Freiburg (24,000) and RB Leipzig (44,345).
Premier League
- Average attendance figure of 36,452 is the second highest in Europe.
- Manchester United FC’s (75,286) was the only Premier League club attracting average crowds in excess of 60,000.
- English stadia (38,000), are approximately 20% smaller than the average Bundesliga stadium (46,924).
- The Premier League had the highest utilization figure in Europe of 96.1% in the 2015/16 season. With the exception of Villa Park, all stadia registered utilisation rates above 90%.
- Due to their relatively low capacities, Premier League spectator figures will not be significantly affected by Brexit.
La Liga
- Average attendance was 28,168.
- The three most prominent Spanish clubs’ average spectator attendances – FC Barcelona (78,881), Real Madrid CF (69,736), and Club Atlético de Madrid’s (44,647) – account for about 35% of the league’s total.
- Competitiveness of the league is a key factor influencing attendances
- It is likely that La Liga will remain stable in 2016/17.
Serie A
- The second lowest average attendance figure (22,644) out of the ‘big five’ leagues, and has experienced a continuous decline in the past few years.
- Italian stadia are the second largest by capacity in Europe, only behind Germany, with an average utilization rate barely exceeding 50
- While the new composition of teams for the 2016/17 season may have a positive impact in terms of stadium utilization, notable improvement of Italian stadia performance is not expected.
Ligue 1
- The lowest average attendances of the ‘big five’ leagues in 2015-16 at 20,894 spectators per game.
- Paris Saint-Germain FC’s Parc des Princes has a capacity of only 47,929, it enjoyed an average attendance of 46,160 (96.3% utilisation) in the past season.
- 2016/17, Ligue 1’s average attendance could increase as promoted clubs’ grounds have around 4,000 seats more than those of the relegated clubs.
- The newly renovated and rebuilt EURO 2016 stadia are expected to attract a large number of new supporters.
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