Leagues around the world have now been interrupted in these uncertain times. Over the course of the season, we have been doing our best to compile attendance statistics from Australia, the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Israel, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Turkey for comparison purposes. With games being played without spectators and ultimately postponed, these figures are not quite complete. Australia and the Czech Republic did finish their regular seasons, so their data can be used for accurate evaluation. All figures used are as reported by the league with no further verification.
Australia:
We have complete data for every team except for Southside, which averaged 958 spectators in the 9 out of 11 games that provided figures. Adelaide, Bendigo, and Melbourne also hosted 11 games and the other four teams hosted 10 games.
Team | Attendance |
Melbourne | 1773 |
Townsville | 1644 |
Canberra | 1392 |
Adelaide | 1014 |
Perth | 886 |
Bendigo | 470 |
Sydney | 412 |
Melbourne ended up as the league leaders in attendance despite a slow start at the gate. Townsville finished behind them, impressively drawing their two biggest crowds at the end of the season despite being completely out of the playoff picture and working to avoid last place instead. Adelaide had a promising season at the gate after changing team ownership and Southside’s numbers that were available looked solid. Perth will be the team to watch in the future as their ownership situation will need to be resolved.
As might be expected, crowds increased for the playoffs. Adelaide drew 1806 fans in the game where they were eliminated. Melbourne drew 3,116 fans in their lone home game. Southside brought in 1,269 in the first game of the semifinals and then opened the finals in front of 1,956. Canberra had 2,492 and 2,201 in their two semifinals games before winning the title in front of 4,481 fans.
Czech Republic:
Strakonice was omitted because there were only attendance figures for two of their games, 65 and 78 for their final two home games. Each team hosted 9 games and there is data for all of the games of KP Brno, USK Prague, Ostrava, and Slovanka with one game missing for the other teams.
Team | Attendance |
Chomutov | 515 |
KP Brno | 355 |
Lokomotiva Trutnov | 214 |
Hradec Kralove | 189 |
Brno | 119 |
USK Prague | 100 |
Slavia Prague | 99 |
Ostrava | 80 |
Slovanka | 78 |
The attendance story here is certainly Chomutov, the newcomers to the division. Their opening game attendance was the only game to reach four figures and attendance settled in at around 500 until a dip at the end of the season. That opening attendance was larger than the cumulative attendance of USK Prague for all nine games, which highlights the difference in business model in play in most of Europe as the league powerhouse boasts two WNBA players, a number of high level players from other European countries, and some of the top Czech players while averaging 100 fans in league play, even though they do bring in hundreds more fans for EuroLeague play.