By Lefteris Moutis / moutis@eurohoops.net
The regular period of the Turkish Airlines Euroleague has ended and Eurohoops.net evaluates the stadium attendance during this year’s regular period and compares it to last year’s.
The popularity of the Euroleague remains at very high levels! The stadium attendance of fans throughout the first stage was big for yet another season and before the competition enters its new era it’s worth taking a more thorough look at the attendance of fans in the stadiums throughout the whole of Europe in the first phase.
The last regular period of the Euroleague in its current form now belongs to the history of European basketball. The conducting system, with 24 teams divided in four groups of six teams, will not be repeated, since, starting from next season, the 16 teams that take part will be facing all the other teams at home and away.
In this year’s competition then, every game of the regular period had an average of 6.609 spectators, with Zalgiris Kaunas emerging as the “champion” with 11.255 fans visiting Zalgirio Arena in every game. Right behind them follow Maccabi FOX Tel Aviv, who have 11.060 fans on their side in every game for years, as their games are continuously sold out.
Three more teams have sold a five-digit number of tickets – Real Madrid, Fenerbahce Istanbul and Crvena Zvezda Telekom Belgrade – with the first two having a similar number of tickets compared to last year. The Serbian team sold a significantly smaller average of tickets this year, as three of their five games this year were held in the smaller Pionir and not the Kombank Arena (18.212 seats), the largest stadium among all the teams that participate in the Euroleague.
The most loyal fans though, apart from Maccabi’s, are Brose Baskets Bamberg’s, who also had every game sold out (with 6.800 tickets), while the fans of FC Bayern Munich and Strasbourg are close behind.
The teams with the biggest increase in ticket sales are Cedevita Zagreb (18%), Anadolu Efes Istanbul (16,3%) and Zalgiris (12,4%), followed by EA7 Emporio Armani Milan (7,5%), Bayern (4,6%), Laboral Kutxa Vitoria Gasteiz (4,2%), Unicaja Malaga (2,6) and CSKA Moscow (1%)!
This means that, compared to last year (the comparison being only between teams that took part in the Euroleague both seasons), aside from Maccabi, another eight teams saw an increase in the attendance to their games in the regular period.
The Top 16 is up next and of course the attendance during the Top 16 and the playoffs will be increased like every year.
Your tickets, please!