I’m always suprised at the quality of lower league German stadiums
German sports culture always seemed so family oriented to me. Its like even small neighbourhood clubs are the gathering center, let it be sports or even bingo nights for elders. Everyone has an attachment to the clubs.
Well its the club culture. To keep ur hometown club Alive u have to participate and work a bit for it. Its strenghening the community and binding ppl to the club
Germany is a wealthy country
The 2006 WC was also very instrumental in that.
2006 is also a big part why some of those stadiums are now not in the Bundesliga anymore. A lot of Clubs taking on huge debt to pay for upgrades that couldn’t really afford it.
Hertha, Schalke, HSV, Nürnberg, Kaiserslautern and Hannover - six of twelve '06 World Cup stadiums are used by clubs currently in the 2. Bundesliga. Add Düsseldorf and that’s seven stadiums with 49.000+ seats, while the Championship, Serie B and Segunda Division have just one 40.000+ seater each (two in Ligue 2).
Spain’s 2nd division has some insane stadiums as well, i bet most of the teams in spanish 2nd division are bigger than most stadiums in Portugal 1st division outside of the big 3, and i would bet 100€ the average attendance is bigger than in Portugal outside the big 3
“Portugal outside of Big 3” is really pretty small business lol. The 2nd tier of the Polish leauge also has more attendance than that, and Poland is among the European countries with fewest people going to football games per capita.
The “Big 3” is more than 60% of attendance of whole Primeira Liga.
Poland is among the European countries with fewest people going to football games per capita.
Is that lack of interest in football, or just the domestic league? Most of the Polish I’ve worked with would play in our 6-a-side games. One lad with a Legia Warsaw screensaver who was a bit of a nutter.
Hard to say for me really. Football is definitely popular. People just don’t go in as big amounts as in football countries, relatively to the country’s whole population. The only country I found with a lower number among the ones I checked was Ireland, but Ireland definitely has other sports they prefer, in Poland football is definitely the most popular sport overall.
What I can say is that in Germany football is considered way more inclusive entertainment, more people think it’s just a nice way to spend time with your family, “normal” people go to games. In Poland going to games is more associated with being a hooli, an ultra, and most middle-class people really despise the idea. I can say my family would definitely never go to a football game, and tbh even avoid going out on the time of the game to not meet the fans on the street to avoid unpleasantries. Also basically all my friends (middle class) despise football and football fans and think it’s an entertainment for simpletons and would never go to a game. The general popular opinion in this class is that footballers are overpaid lazy do-nothings who are all very bad at their job, and the fans are lowlife who will beat someone up.
I can also say that my hometown club has a stadium of 40 000, which is just too big in general. It was built for Euro 2012, in hopes that the culture will catch up to the facilities. The average last season was 10 thousand people, when they were battling relegation. This season, inexplicably, they keep winning games and lead the league, and the stadium is suddenly full.
Because those teams used to play in the BuLi
I guess so but when you compare 2nd tiers from Spain and Germany their quality is so much better. Germany’s 3rd tier also has great stadiums too, the only one that I can think of being great in our 3rd tier is Riazor and that’s also because they used to be a great team.
I mean the Championship also has big teams, Leicester and probably the biggest one is Leeds are there. Sheffield Wednesday is also a traditional club.
Germans know how to build stuff
Well I’m not surpried, fan culture is insane in Germany and with massive, classic Bundesliga clubs like Hamburg, Nurnberg, Hannover, Dusseldorf etc, the numbers are guaranteed to be high.
Hannover and Düsseldorf??? mentioned but not us is crazy
Not mentioning Schalke which in fact is amongst the top ten clubs with the most members in the world is the real craziness
There’s too many big clubs in 2.Bundesliga to remeber at one moment, okay?
Always been a fan of 1. FUCK since that UEFA Cup tie back in 92/93. Shame what’s happened to your club (and ours) since those days.
Germany should thank us for Fritz and Ottmar, Eckel, Liebrich,Kohlmeyer our first World Cup won by Kaiserslautern :)
That’s certainly not an attitude any of those idols would be fond of buddy. We should be grateful they’re part of our history, others shouldn’t be grateful to us.
Elversberg bigger than PSG
goes without saying really
Always has been
Bigger than our “Landeshauptstadt” defo
MLS in USA is 22,094
That’s pretty solid, considering it’s only like the 5th popular sport or so.
Germany also has a significantly larger population than countries like England and Spain.
Germany is wealthy, has nice big stadiums. Also, Germany has 85m people, bigger cities, bigger supporter groups, bigger everything than the whole rest of Europe. It’s no surprise that they score big in this kind of statistics.
Not surprised. Ive been living in Paris for a couple years now and even though I have so many friends that are huge football fans there isnt a big “going to the stadium” fan base. I’ve talked to friends and other people that have been living in Paris all their life and are fans of PSG and have never been to a game in their life. Even though there are specificities to this like the fact that its super expensive to go watch a game at the Parc des Princes I believe it also has to do with the fact that the culture of going to your team’s game just isnt as big here.
Only one team in Paris means the stadium is full anyway (45 000+). The low attendance come from club with smaller stadium (Reims, Brest), less club history (Clermont) and no supp culture (Monaco).
Germany has a big and spread out population as well, which probably helps. If Paris had 10 football teams in Ligue 1 like London does in the Barcleys, their attandence could be a lot higher
in the Barcleys
How long has it been since it’s no longer called the Barclay’s premier league ? 10 years ?