The Bundesliga v. the Premier League (and the NFL): Attendance Comparisons

I've written about match day attendance and leagues' financial health before, so I thought it was interesting to see these figures from the latest report on the Bundesliga's financial situation. Here's the trend in spectators since the inception of the league in 1963.

While the league's annual attendance ranged between 5 and 7 million per season for almost three decades throughout the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, we have seen a rapid and sustained increased since Germany's unification in 1989/90 from about 5 million then to almost 13 million during these last two years. On average, that's over 41,000 folks in the stadium for any given match. And when you add in the 2. Bundesliga - the league's second division - you get almost 17 million fans watching professional soccer matches in Germany's top two leagues.

So how does this compare with other professional leagues? To compare leagues, it is necessary to account for variations in terms of numbers of games/matches played, etc. So a reasonable metric is to focus on and compare match day attendance figures. Take a look.

Turns out, the Bundesliga's average of about 41,000 paying customers per match makes it the second-most attended league in the world of professional sports, behind only the NFL with its astonishing average of over 67,000 paying spectators. This also means that the Bundesliga beats out the Australian Football League, Major League Baseball and, importantly, the English Premier League with an average that is almost 20% lower at slightly over thirty-four thousand.

Does this mean that all is well in the Bundesliga? Not by a long shot, and I'll be reporting on the league's financial health before too long.