re: European Soccer question....Attendance related...

Yesterday was international friendlies, mainly being played in neutral countries.

Would you go to Germany to watch a Saints preseason game?
It was also midweek, and alot of games on mainland Europe dont finish until nearly 11pm so they aren't exactly helping to bring in the young kids and families.

Overall attendances blow in Italy because their stadiums are HORRIBLE alot are pretty much all concrete, their economy blows and the ultras/hooligans have scared of families. Spain has stupidly late games aswell which doesnt help alot of non Madrid/Barcelona teams.

Theres also a lot more saturation in the markets, its not just one team per city, London for example probably has 8-10 teams in the top 2 tiers of English football, and some teams simply have stadiums too big for that, you arent going to get 20k people watching 2nd rate (at best) standard when theres so many better options, they only have very local support.