Re: Record Low Ticket Sales For Juve Games Continue Not a bad article overall, but a couple of points that stood out (not to beat a dead horse here): 1) Blaming the deteriorating economic situation in Turin as the reason for poor attendance. As if the economic situation in the rest of Italy were any better, especially in Rome and Naples (see below). 2) Blaming the athletics track for the poor atmosphere. Rome and Naples have athletics tracks and the atmosphere is second to none. 3) Again, not a bad article, but his main thesis suffers from the "no sh1t, Sherlock" syndrome. "Juve attendance is bad because Juve fans in Turin dont go to the stadium enough. Dont blame us juventini who live 100-1000km away." Well, duh. ....we dont expect juventini in Tuscany/Veneto/Marche/Abruzzi to do what amounts to a trasferta for every Juve home game. The part of the article I appreciated the most was actually the comments from Alessandro Lodi, where he blames the club management for the poor attendance. A Juve-Atalanta game with 33,000 spectators brings more money into Juve's bank account than a Milan-Atalanta with 55,000 due to the elevated ticket prices. But hey, that still means more money, less security problems (since presumibly most hooligans etc. come from lesser priviliged economic classes) and better public order. The drawback, however, is that seeing Juve-Atalanta with 33,000 people in a desolate Delle Alpi is discouraging to fans who are considering going back, while seeing Milan-Atalanta with 55,000 people at the San Siro makes you want to go back. Different priorities for different clubs.
I thought Juventus was one of the most popular teams in Italy and therefore attendance would be very high for its home games. However, looking at this statistics http://european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn/2004/aveeur.htm I found that Juve is below AC Milan, Inter, Roma and Lazio in average attendance for its home games. Why??? Is the stadium too small? Doesn't people in Turin like Juve anymore, or has it always being like this? a paltry fifth place? Hertha BSC Berlin, Leeds United, and Sevilla has better attendance than Juve!!!! shocking!
Juve's attendance woes discussed extensively here: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=140958 Also, moving to the Juve board.
Not that shocking because Juve has won a lot more trophies than those teams. Juve's fans are spoiled the fans of those teams you mentioned are still hungering for some success.
Aren't they getting a new stadium too? Don't they have a fairly modern stadium as it is? And wow, I didn't realize the Turkish league has such good attendence. Judging by that list, they probably have the best attendence stability behind the Big 4 leagues.
I don't really think that is the case. By that logic, Man United, Real Madrid, Arsenal, etc should also have relatively small attendance when clearly they don't.
I saw one Italian game last season (Milan-Udinese) and one Turkish game (Fenerbahce-Genclerbirligi). The atmosphere at the Turkish game was unbelievable, 10x more exciting than at San Siro. To be fair, the Turkish game was a crucial late season game while the Milan game was just before Christmas. I think the Turkish league is really underrated in terms of quality, fan support, organization, etc.
It says on this link: http://www.stadiumguide.com/giovanniagnelli.htm "New stands will be built inside the actual 'Delle Alpi' stadium structure (on the track)" What will happen to the lower stands already in place? will they be destroyed? how will they accomplish this? Also, the capacity will only be 40k!!! isn't it better if they just build a higher capacity soccer-specific stadium like Bayern Munich, Liverpool, and Arsenal are doing? Something like this:
I think they will tear down the Delle Alpi and build a completely new stadium. I imagine they will play in another stadium while it's being built - Communale? Could be wrong about that. Yes, the capacity will be only 40K. I've heard a lot of discussion and grumbling about this issue, but the fact is Juve's average attendance is around 40K and for many minor matches it is below 10,000.
I'd expect the average attendance to go up once the new stadium is completed, seen as the tracks will be gone, and the view will be better. So avr. att. of say 50k would be feasible, and 60k for important games. So they should at least have a 60k seat stadium, plus it's not like they're a poor club!
It would be interesting to see what Juve's attendance was like pre-Delle Alpi, in the old Communale. But I think the poor attendance is deeper than just removing the track, better view, etc. The Olimpico in Rome has a track but Roma and Lazio both get consistently strong crowds, consistently better than Juve. The cynical view is that Juve want a limited number of seats so they can jack up the ticket prices and therefore be more profitable.
This would be scary! and I would rather have twice the number of spectators paying a little less, that way I'd have stronger fan support while being more profitable.
Here's a link for you. You'll see that even in its 1980s heyday, Juve never (maybe once) averaged over 40k. Most seasons were around 30-35k, well below other Italian giants. It was also very nostalgic to see Napoli leading attendance w/ ~10k margin every season. If we look at fallen angels from 1980s, this one has to be at the top (over Sheffield Wednesday and such).
Sorry, forgot the link: http://european-football-statistics.co.uk/attn.htm Go to Italy page and you'll see all the links from there.
Napoli is in serie C and gets 45K avr! they should buy better players with this money so that they can come back to serie A. Juve on the other hand only gets a paltry 25k so far for this year! Maybe Turin is just not a football town. Have the Juve execs ever considered moving the team to Napoli? or even Milan? how far is Turin from Milan?
It's not that Turin is not a football town, it's just a small town. Compared to other cities w/ two teams (Milan and Rome) and even Napoli, Turin is small. And Torino does have decent support. Turin is probably more comparable to Genoa, in terms of population and having two teams. If you assume that Juventus and Torino were in Milan (assuming no AC and Inter), the city size itself would probably tack on 20-30k to attendance. Btw, related to the postings of Juve getting preferrential treatment from the refs through the ages - anyone see Juve-Bologna this weekend? Talk about "soft" calls!!!
a. Teams don't move in Italy, or basically anywhere else in the world except the States. As a caveat, I will say there was the occasional threat to move to Milan (or even Trieste if I remember correctly) in the negotiations over rebuilding the Delle Alpi but it was nothing more than that. b. Despite the modest attendance, Juve have won 27 Italian titles, well more than anyone else. I'd take smaller crowds but more trophies any day. c. Napoli have suffered from terrible management and financial problems for a long time. Nothing is as simple as just buying better players. Even if Napoli had a lot of money (which they don't) why would players want to go down to Serie C instead of staying in A or B? d. As was discussed extensively in the other mentioned thread, Juve have many sources of revenue, not just ticket sales. Juve have quite a lot of power on the transfer market, as much as any other Italian team and only behind Real Madrid, Barcelona, Man United, Chelsea...maybe that's it. Just because they're not getting big crowds doesn't mean they can't be competitive and certainly doesn't mean they're going to be leaving Turin!
I see you point! they're all valid points. However this is just so strange, yet fascinating you can almost say fascinatingly strange!
Why do they have crappy attenddance? Because they play in a Crappy stadium with a running track. I can not stand stadiums with running tracks. It seems that half of the teams in Italy play in stadiums with running tracks. Stadiums with tracks are horrible for the fan's. They have to sit at least 20 yards away from the action if they're sitting in the grandstands. If they chose to sit behind the goals they're about 30 yards from the goal. I believe that stadiums with tracks are bad for the game. With the fan's having to sit further away from the field it just kills the atmosphere. The stadium in Genoa that Sampdoria plays in is awesome. It holds about 45,000 and the seats are really close to the field.
This has been addressed above. This is not why Juve have relatively bad attendance. Other teams in Italy (and other places) play in similar situations and have excellent attendance. Roma and Lazio, for example. Bayern Munich is another example. Agreed about that, it's one of the best stadiums around.
Here is a link to an article which was posted in the thread I linked to earlier: http://members.tripod.com/bianconeri/fans2.html Here is my response to that article, which I repeat here for ease of access: It seems Juve's management prefers to have a smaller ground which would conveniently allow them to overcharge for their tickets. Whatever the reasons for this lack of attendance, it's pretty sad. You can use the excuse that the fans were not interested in a match vs. an Israeli team to explain a stadium with only 8,000 fans, but even Bayern Munich only drew a little over that. On a side note, talking about Napoli, we did spend a decent amount of money to put together a good side (by C1 standards). The problem, though is that it takes time for a team to settle and having a pre-season of oh, about a week or so doesn't exactly help. Combine that with a) a very mediocre coach and b) players who have primadonna attitudes, thinking themselves to be too good to play in C1 anyway, and you see where there can be problems. The club intends to buy more in January. All this being said, I remain fairly optimistic about our chances of promotion to Serie B. Also, it is interesting to see that many players have expressed interest in playing for Napoli even when clubs in A or B were after them. And yeah, Napoli fans are just something else. 60,000 for a game in C1...that says it all. (Note for mods: it may be good idea to combine this thread with the original Juve attendance thread.)