Serie A Attendance

Something or another about some hard to obtain passes that allow you to purchase tickets...not really sure though. Im sure one of the guys on this board knows much more than i do about it.

The trains run late.

they're all at home watching EPL?

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The trains run late.

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Assuming they aren't on one of their one day "strikes".

Italian football in general is going down the shitter.

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The size of the stadiums has a lot to do with it too. Most of them are huge stadiums built for athletics and aren't soccer specific. They're rarely going to ever look full, even with good attendance. Most of the EPL averages less than 40k a game, but filling smaller stadiums looks like better attendance on TV. I'm sure a lot of EPL crowds would look pathetic too if they were put in Italian stadiums.

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This is correct regarding clubs in bigger cities. For example, if there are 50K fans at a Roma match, the 20k empty seats will be lower field level sideline because they're expensive and the view's not as good as higher seats due to the track so on the TV background stadiums often look empty even with 50K fans. Sampdoria and Genoa, on the other hand, have an English style stadium which appears full on TV even at 15K fans.

These older Olympics style stadiums are a huge problem. Roma is currently for sale and the number one issue, supposedly, for the American investor groups looking to make bids has to do with building permits for a soccer specific stadium. If you look at Forbes, or related club economic breakdowns, a club like Roma is still around 10th-12th in the world in revenue with 50-75% less revenue coming from ticket sales due to the rent etc compared to an Arsenal or Dortmund.


Also, there's other huge factors across Serie A:

1. Violent supporters / Ultras groups are no more serious than in, say, the UK BUT there's a world a difference in how those problems have been addressed. From personal experience, you're probably a lot safer as a West Ham supporter going to eat after a match in Roma than vice versa BUT once you're near the stadium in England the security is that of Baghdad's green zone.

2. La Tessera del Tifosa ("Fan Card") -- this has probably resulted in 5-10k less fans per match if not more. It's kid of complicated to explain but the idea was to identify problem fans. However, it's really more of a money making scam from the bankers that saw it through. It's a bank issued credit card that aligns the fan to a team based on physical address. The first problem is that huge numbers of fans have simply boycotted getting it. Another is that, if there's some a-hole causing problems near you and you move to other seats and those people throw shite from your original seats ect, the police may rescind your card or even press charges against you for the incident. I could go on about this BS card. . .

3. TV -- Revenue for Serie A clubs is fantastic. Along lines with the EPL and much better than anywhere else in the world (aside from Real and Barca's absurd TV deal to assure with even more certainly that a Villarreal can never make La Liga more than a two team league). However, that every Serie A match is now available in (expensive) HD TV packages has made it even easier for fans to watch at home or in bars. There's not a place in Rome where you can't hear the TV blaring and collective cheers and grunts shaking the city during a Roma match--more so even than, say, Birmingham, Alabama during an Iron Bowl.