I just added up the attendances for the past two days’ matches. 386 thousand for the Premiership, 209 for the Championship, and another 190 for League One, Two and the Conference.
I guess you are excluding odd places such as that country way down south where they speak Portuguese, rank number five in total population and have won a World Cup or five :).
And I was so excited that this thread was going to bust open the Great Soccer Hoax that has had all those Europeans laughing at us.
Seriously, this is one of those thread that makes the Dope so awesome.
I may be confused then- what is the league that TNS has won the last few years- is that rugby?
The Welsh Premier is an amateur league. The pro Welsh clubs don’t compete in it as they would have no serious opposition (though it would give them an easy route into European competition).
That’s the Welsh League which the Welsh were obliged to form in order to continue to be allowed teams in the UEFA Cup. The 3 teams that play in the Football League declined to join. Let’s not dwell too long on attendances in the Welsh League. Suffice to say that my team, Aberdeen, will often take more fans to away games than will attend the whole card of Welsh league games. And that’s even when we’re not in the top half of the table. (Having said that, we still made very heavy weather of beating Barry Town in the UEFA Cup a few years back).
Got it…all so confusing 
GorillaMan, there might be days when the attendance at Portman Road is the same as your post count! I’m more Welsh premier or Scottish 2nd.
Last time it was that low was a Tuesday night FA cup replay against Chester 
You mean where it is called “futebol” (FOO-chee-bough)?
Attendance at League of Ireland matches is low enough apparently but this is presumably partly because of the popularity of GAA (Irish national sports) and also the popularity of British Premier League teams in Ireland.
To expand on this, the fox Cities Appleton-Oshkosh-Neenah Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) is nearly 380,000.
Add that to Green Bay and you are nearing 500,000 without even including Milwaukee (for those who don’t know, GB used to play some of thier home games in Milwaukee)
Brian
Thanks everyone for your enlightening responses. I hadn’t realized how long most soccer league seasons are. That explains a lot.
I’ve noticed that many of the games in England seem to have higher attendance, but my impression is that the games in Italy and Spain attract smaller crowds. I think this may be due to the size of the stadiums. I see that Milan in Italy has a huge stadium, and two big teams play their home games there. The stadium is so big it makes the crowds look much smaller than they really are.
I wonder if teams like the Milan teams should play in smaller stadiums? It would look more attractive on TV to see a small stadium packed full of fans rather than a huge but half-empty stadium. Or do they occasionally get sell-out crowds for a few big games in the season? That’s the only justification I could imagine.
Thanks again for all your answers.
A continental trend which Britain has avoided is for multipurpose stadiums, with an athletics track around the pitch. This makes for a bigger stadium for any given size of stands, because of the larger perimeter, but can ruin the athmosphere. In an English ground, Row A is only a few yards from the touchline. (And of course, if you’ve got a semicircle at each end due to the running track, the worst view becomes even worse.)
But the main thing I’m wondering is why does the appearance on TV mean so much? Everyone knows that the San Siro is huge, and that the crowds are big even for a minor match. And yes, they rake in a small fortune for the major matches.
(Random interjection: According to Ipswich fans who travelled to the UEFA Cup second leg against Inter, while being kept in the empty ground for a ridiculous amount of time after the match, they entertained themselves singing “shit stadium, no fans” )
Clearly the OP didn’t watch many EPL matches because they are always sold out. He probably saw Serie A or South American matches. If it was Serie A, the low numbers might have been because of the recent violence that Italy experienced. Also, if I remember correctly, doesn’t Inter play in a huge stadium that is usually like half empty?
The most recent figures I could find quickly were an average of 62,000 for 2002-2004, far more than half of the capacity of 86,000. The steep three-tier sides to the San Siro make the middle tier the best option, and I think that’s where the ultras base themselves. And you hardly want to sit below them if you can avoid it.
Edit: it could well have been Premier League matches that the OP saw, though. As I mentioned earlier, Middlesbrough for instance tend to have masses of empty seats visible to television, because everybody is hunched up into the main stand wishing they were anywhere else. (I’m glad there’s no Middlesbrough fans here, that I know of!)
It’s not called “football” in Canada or Australia.
I haven’t seen a Middlesbrough match in quite some time, not that I’m missing much. Here in the U.S., I’m stuck seeing whatever FSC puts on. I think that they might be required to give all teams equal time, because I’ve seen way too many Darby County matches lately.
Well while we’re on the subject of sports attendance and viewers. There is no sport in the world that can hold a candle to the average attendance and ratings of a NASCAR race. (If you want to call NASCAR a sport) Average attendance of a race exceeds 150,000 and television ratings are in the millions. According to wikipedia the league sanctions 1500 races a year 1500 * 150,000 = 225,000,000.>>>>>Thats a lot of tickets bought to watch cars drive in circles!
Attendance, no. Ratings, yes. The World Cup final is watched by 2 billion people, give or take.