I don't know if many people here paid attention to this tidbit, but: On Tuesday, the Champions' League match between Juventus FC and Ajax Amsterdam drew a measley 6,875 people at the Stade Delle Alpi in Torino! http://soccernet.espn.go.com/match?id=169195&cc=5901 http://bianconeri.tripod.com/fans2.html I mean, it was already known that Juve had qualified for the next knockout stage, so the match was meaningless from their fans' perspective. But can you imagine attendance for a Champions' League match for a European powerhouse team lower than typical numbers drawn by Revs, Dallas, or even the much misrepresented Earthquakes? Next time there is smack based on low attendance, and teams deserving to be moved around based on it etc., this little tidbit is something to keep it in perspective.
I have done some linking to the subject of Juve attendance here: http://soundercentral.com/board/viewtopic.php?t=1681 As one poster notes, Seattle of the A-League once out-drew Juve when they had a "crowd" of 300! Their stadium/location is a big part of their attendance problem.
My goodness, an attendance of 237 for a Coppa Italia match 3 years ago! http://members.tripod.com/bianconeri/Matches.htm MLS teams (or even A-League - now USL) draw much better than this for US Open Cup matches. Can we use this as a validation that we've made it for the sport in our nation, and put all attendance talk to rest?
Before we all cream ourselves. TV ratings in Italy have taken a nosedive aswell. The game is having major problems there.
Nope. Serie A has been outstanding this year. Last year bottom team thought they could play defensive and still stay up. That was proved wrong so the games are much more wide open and teams like Cagliari really go after the big dogs. 1. The biggest problem is Juve. They have been on top too long. Milan needs to reel them in. 2. Some of the really big teams (Inter Lazio Roma Parma) are not doing well and their fans have really tuned out at this point (I think).
To add to that..most Italian football fans I know openly agree that the league is highly corrupt at the top.
Looks like people have gotten indigestion from watching calcio on TV in Italy. http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news;_ylc=X3oDMTBpYnF0a2UxBF9TAzk1ODYzNTkwBHNlYwN0bQ--?slug=reu-italytelevision&prov=reuters&type=lgns Could MLS TV ratings in the US become better than Serie A ratings in Italia one day? I understand this is a bit of a hyperbole as of today. But who knows, such a scenario may not be inconceivable few years down the road.
Its not just the top. Fact is we are seeing a slow unravelling of a house of cards that has taken 20 yyears to build. There is simply not as much money in Italian Football as some are lead to believe. These club routinely run up huge debts and buy players that it takes them years to pay for. Engage in financial shenanigans with other clubs to 'balance' books at times. such as one club transfering over a dozen players to another club to get them off the books at a most opportune time (say the end of a financial reporting period) so that they claim that there actual payroll is much lower than it really is. Then weeks later those players are transfered back to the original club. Lets not mention the fact that they fail to pay their taxes since thats an entirely different scandal (they must thank god for Berlusconi) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3580181.stm Then there is the match fixing. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3705147.stm Its also a very bad sign when all of the clubs i a nations top two divisions get raided (as well as the the italian football federation and the italian football league) by financial police. http://www.tandemnews.com/printer.php?storyid=3727 There is more concerning Parma and Lazio as well as faker passport scandals but its late and I just got in.
Current Juve Stadium: http://bianconeri.tripod.com/dellealpi.html New Juve Stadium plans, other news: http://bianconeri.tripod.com/news2.html New Stadium Images: http://bianconeri.tripod.com/pictifo/juve204.html http://bianconeri.tripod.com/pictifo/juve203.html ENVISION, a LA media group, could be the Stadium naming sponsor.
This thread should be stickied. I cannot believe that there are actually people on BigSoccer who criticize one of the "Big 4" for creating situations that MLS explicitly tries to avoid: not overpaying players setting up a league where no one team is dominant for long not running up enormous debts not horribly corrupt except for weird allocation rules
Hey I am a realist. I criticise whatever needs to be criticised. Whether it is MLS or any league in europe or wherever. Only problem is when critique MLS I get called a eurosnob.
I can't imagine that calcio would be anything other than #1 over there. However, as crazy stuff like this keeps piling up...anything can happen. I hear that they have a good basketball league.
Yeah, why did this get moved? It should be in "MLS General". The title of the thread is sarcastic, so it really has nothing to do with MLS expansion/former/stadium. It's a general lesson for hyperactive posters to give some perspective on problems some of the biggest teams/leagues may face.