The week’s attendances facts:
- Reading, Southampton, and West Ham replaced Blackburn, Bolton, and Wolves in the Premier League this year, and the result is a steep increase of the PL’s occupancy rate. The three new teams all (close to) sell out their home matches, with the consequence that now 95% of all available tickets in the PL gets sold.
- Torino recorded the second sell out crowd of the Serie A this season. The first was a full house at Pescara, and both times Inter were the guests.
- Saint-Etienne opened the new Kop Nord stand this weekend, and fans were excited. The attendance of 25,500 was about 20% higher than those of their first two home matches, and would have been the second highest of last season’s attendances (the home match against Lyon naturally unbeatable).
- The regular season of the Major League Soccer is nearing its end, and the average attendances is currently a solid 18,496 visitors per match.
- It is striking though that the four teams with the lowest averages are playing at homes that were not built for them. These are the New England Revolution, Chivas USA (The Home Depot Center was built for the LA Galaxy), DC United, and San Jose Earthquakes.
- It has to be said though, that the Earthquakes did sell out most of their matches. It is just that they play at Buck Shaw Stadium, the smallest in the league.
- The hope was that attendances in the Polish Ekstraklasa would get a boost of the Euro 2012 tournament as the common Polish would flock to the stadium, but no such thing has happened. Over the first four playing rounds the average league attendance has remained steady at about 8,700 spectators per match.