The Best Attended European Soccer League in 2008/9 was…

By: Daryl | June 9th, 2009

… not the English Premier League. It was the Bundesliga.

Which makes perfect sense if you think about it. Man Utd average just under 76,000 and Arsenal just over 60,000. But after that it sort of tails off. Even big big teams like Liverpool and Chelsea can only accommodate average crowds of 43,611 and 41,588 respectively, while teams like Portsmouth and Wigan are averaging under 20,000. All in all, the unofficial average Premier League crowd is 36,650 per game.

Not bad of course. But not as good as in Germany.

The unofficial average Bundesliga crowd is an impressive 42,602, led by Borussia Dortmund with 72,997 and Bayern with 68,647. But even the 10th best attended Bundesliga team (Hannover 96) averages 41,850 per game.

The English Premier League did have more total fans through the gates, with 13,535,272 to the Bundesliga’s 13,027,226. But then the Prem has two more teams.

Here are the top five European leagues, ranked by unofficial average total attendance in 2008/9 (as calculated by ESPN Soccernet) –

1. German Bundesliga – 42,602
2. English Premier League – 36,650
3. Spain Primera Division – 28,491
4. Italy Serie A – 25,324
5. France Ligue 1 – 21,031

The Dutch Eredivisie would come in sixth with 19,961, and then it gets a little more complicated.

You’ve got the English fizzy pop Championship with 18,026, and the 2. Bundesliga with 15,866. There’s also the Scottish Prem with 15,537. But there are no available stats for the Turkish Super Lig, which based on some earlier figures has got to be around 14,000 or more.

Averages are deceptive of course. For example a team like Monaco isn’t doing Ligue 1’s numbers any favours, with their average attendance of only 8,258.

Note: The German and English figures are apparently confirmed by a recent Deloitte report (we don’t have that, but we have a Canadian Press story quoting the numbers). But – perhaps unsurprisingly – ESPN SoccerNet are prone to mistakes. For the 2007/8 season they had VfB Stuttgart’s average attendance down as 105,520 despite the Mercedes-Benz Arena having a capacity of just 58,000.

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the king

not at all ganaius. A team averaging 40,000 may be able to average 50,000 if there stadium held 60,000. That team averaging 19,000 may have hit their limit. Percentages are deceptive.

Bayern Munich were in the 50,000 in a stadium of equal capacity before they moved grounds, now it's 70,000 each week with a waiting list
Gnaius

A better stat (or at least just as useful) is the percent capactity full each stadium was. That way, although a team may play at a 20,000 seat stadium, but average attendence of 19,000, you are better able to compare the interest of the fans to a team that plays at a 50,000 stadium but only average 40,000.
Marcus

The A-League averaged 12,180 this season.
Melbourne averaged 24,500 this season so i guess were caring the league :)
Laurie

Moremoremore, if we can trust Soccernet, it was 16,310 for 2008. Pretty respectable, relatively speaking, if you ask me, for a league in its early adolescence. http://soccernet.espn.go.com/s...

Even more exciting for me personally is that Seattle Soumders FC is on track to beat the averages for La Liga, Serie A and Ligue 1 this year.
moremoremore

I'd like to know the numbers of the average attendance of MLS. Could be interesting but most likely would be upsetting.
MAD

According to the same source the German, English, Spanish and French numbers are down from the previously recorded year.
diana

Daryl, one of the newspapers here in my country do also pick up a similar report like the one you got from the Canadian Press.

Here - http://www.straitstimes.com/Br...