by Matīss Babris
Attendances in the Latvian TonyBet Virslīga have displayed consistent growth in recent years, culminating in an average of 482 spectators per match in 2024. That season’s highlight was the Riga FC vs RFS derby, which attracted an impressive crowd of 5321 fans.
As we all know, football doesn’t only consist of 22 field players, referees, managers and other supporting staff. One of the main goals of ‘The Beautiful Game’ is to entertain the crowds who watch games in person, in front of the TV screens or anywhere else in the world. To see how Latvian top tier of association football is doing in this regard, let’s dive deeper into the attendance figures and trends from the 2024 season.
Attendances in Virslīga
If we take a look on the attendance of Latvian Virslīga in the last 10 years, we can see that the highest point was in 2015 (524.6) when FK Liepāja won the Virslīga, recording an impressive number of spectators per match – the average attendance in FK Liepāja home games was 1498 and the game with the highest attendance was the Kurzeme derby against FK Ventspils, which gathered 3200 spectators. The worst season was 2021, which was influenced by Covid-19 regulations, but average attendances have been improving each year since then, reaching 481.7 in 2024.
In 2024, there were 36 gameweeks and 180 games. These 180 games were attended by 86704 spectators. Let’s break these numbers down in various ways.
Average attendance
First, there is the average attendance per Virslīga club. On this metric, Riga FC gathered the largest amount of fans per game (913) for the third year running. One of the main reasons is the highly attended games in Skonto stadium against RFS (5314 and 5321). Team with the lowest average attendance was FK Auda (229).
Bottom 4 teams show a significant drop in average attendances compared to the top 6 teams. There are various reasons for such low figures, including team’s performance in the league, quality of matchday experience, location, schedule/time of the games, marketing/advertising before the games, and so on.
Median attendance
However, in calculating the average attendance outliers, such as the Big Riga Derby, risk skewing the data. This is why calculating median attendances is important – the middle value of attendance numbers arranged in order. In doing so, we identify a typical attendance figure, avoiding the influence of very high or very low values.
In this case, we see that the top and bottom teams remain the same, but, for example, BFC Daugavpils climbs the table by 3 spots, mean that the fans of BFC Daugavpils are attending all games with similar interest. On the other hand, FK Liepāja drops 4 places. The reason for this is that the average attendance was highly influenced by a couple of well-attended matches – notably, the 2 local derbies against FK Grobiņa (Grobiņas SC/LFS last season; 2546 and 1864) and a game against FS Jelgava (1300).
Games with 1000+ spectators
Of 180 games, there were 8 that gathered more than 1000 spectators. These were:
- GW27: Riga FC vs RFS (Skonto Stadium, Rīga) – 5321
- GW9: Riga FC vs RFS (Skonto Stadium, Rīga) – 5314
- GW16: FK Liepāja vs Grobiņas SC/LFS (Daugava Stadium, Liepāja) – 2546
- GW25: FK Liepāja vs Grobiņas SC/LFS (Daugava Stadium, Liepāja) – 1846
- GW18: RFS vs Riga FC (LNK Sporta Parks, Rīga) – 1519
- GW26: FK Liepāja vs FS Jelgava (Daugava Stadium, Liepāja) – 1300
- GW12: Riga FC vs Valmiera FC (Skonto Stadium, Rīga) – 1205
- GW36: RFS vs Riga FC (LNK Sporta Parks, Rīga) – 1063
Of those 8, six were derby games (RFS vs Riga FC and FK Liepāja vs FK Grobiņa), suggesting that people enjoy rivalry and desire to support their team against local rivals.
Attendances by Team
Riga FC
Riga FC was the highest attended team by average attendance per game in the Virslīga for the third year in a row. Their average attendance reached 1200 spectators with a median of 748 spectators. Clearly, results would be very different without the highly attended games against RFS, so, hopefully, some of those 5000+ spectators will start to attend also other games to improve the attendance even more.
Game with the highest attendance was GW27 vs FC RFS at the Skonto Stadium – 5231 spectators for the Big Riga Derby. This game was played on August 25th and resulted in a 0:0 draw.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW4 vs FK Liepāja at Mežaparks Sports Village – 250 spectators. This game took place on April 4th and resulted in a 4:0 win.
FK Liepāja
FK Liepāja, despite the shaky start of the season, held on to their supporters, gathering on average of 595 spectators (but a median of only 378). The local derby made it clear that football in Liepāja not only has deep roots but that people of Liepāja do still enjoy it. If the results improve, we could see continued improvement in FK Liepāja’s attendance also in 2025 and beyond.
Game with the highest attendance was GW16 vs Grobiņas SC/LFS at Daugava Stadium in Liepāja – 2546 spectators. This game took place on May 29th and resulted in a 3:0 win.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW8 vs FS Jelgava at Daugava Stadium reserve pitch in Liepāja – 83 spectators. This game took place on April 23rd and resulted in a 0:1 loss.
Grobiņas SC/LFS
The league newcomers came in with a bang, showcasing high attendance numbers throughout the season to an average of 539 spectators per game. Their median attendance was 550, showing consistency, so it will be interesting to see what the attendance figures will look like in the team’s second season in Virslīga.
Game with the highest attendance was GW7 vs FK Liepāja at Daugava Stadium reserve pitch in Liepāja – 932 spectators. This game took place on April 18th and resulted in a dramatic 3:2 win.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW8 vs RFS at Daugava Stadium reserve pitch in Liepāja – 263 spectators. This game took place on April 23rd and resulted in a 0:4 loss.
FC RFS
Despite being Virslīga champions for the second year in the row, RFS can’t boast about being the team with the highest attendances, being only 4th on this metric. On average, RFS gathered 493 spectators, but the median was 410. Now that LNK Sporta Parks has finished building the main stand, let’s see if the spectators in 2025 will attend attend the newest stadium in the Baltics more eagerly than in 2024 season.
Game with the highest attendance was GW18 vs Riga FC at LNK Sporta Parks in Rīga – 1519 spectators. This game took place on June 16th and resulted in a 2:2 draw.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW23 vs BFC Daugavpils at LNK Sporta Parks in Rīga – 215 spectators. This game took place on September 17th and resulted in a 4:1 win.
Valmiera FC
Valmiera FC started the season very strongly and were in contention for winning the league again. Attendance-wise, Valmiera FC gathered 476 spectators on average, with a median of 405. Let’s see how the situation changes in 2025 as the club struggles with their precarious financial situation and is forced to part ways with many key players.
Game with the highest attendance was GW18 vs Tukums 2000/Telms at J. Daliņš stadium in Valmiera – 945 spectators. This game took place on June 14th and resulted in a 6:1 win.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW33 vs FK Liepāja at J. Daliņš stadium in Valmiera – 250 spectators. This game took place on October 20th and resulted in a 0:1 loss.
BFC Daugavpils
BFC Daugavpils supporters showcased very good attendance figures at the start of the season, with a stable drop-off as the year had gone on. Average attendance per game in Daugavpils was 436 spectators and the median was 418.
Game with the highest attendance was GW3 vs Tukums 2000/Telms at Esplanāde in Daugavpils – 650 spectators. This game took place on March 30th and resulted in a 3:1 win.
There were 2 games with the lowest attendance – GW34 vs FK Auda (0:1) on October 26th and GW35 vs Valmiera FC (3:3) on November 3rd at Esplanāde in Daugavpils – both recording 250 spectators.
FK Metta
FK Metta average attendance per game was 307 spectators, but the median was 263. Interestingly, there were 3 stadiums where FK Metta held their home games in 2024 – first part of the season was played at Hanzas High school field in Rīga, one game in the middle of the season was played at the Sloka stadium in Jūrmala, and the rest of the season was played in Daugava stadium in Rīga.
Game with the highest attendance was GW34 vs RFS at Daugava stadium in Rīga – 900 spectators. This game took place on October 28th and resulted in a 1:2 loss.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW22 vs BFC Daugavpils at Sloka stadiumin Jūrmala – 136 spectators. This game took place on July 7th and resulted in a 3:2 win.
FS Jelgava
FS Jelgava very obviously lost their supporters in the middle of the season. If attendance hovered around 400 at the start of the season, that number dropped down to below 200 towards the end of it. The season’s average attendance was 286 and the median was 233.
Game with the highest attendance was GW7 vs Valmiera FC at FK Jelgava training center in Jelgava – 445 spectators. This game took place on April 18th and resulted in a 0:3 loss.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW13 vs RFS at FK Jelgava training center – 141 spectators. This game took place on May 15th and resulted in a 1:2 loss.
FK Tukums 2000/TELMS
FK Tukums average attendance per game in 2024 season was 256, but the median was 243. FK Tukums can’t really boast large crowds due to Tukums being a smaller city, but there certainly is still potential to increase average attendances.
Game with the highest attendance was GW35 vs FK Metta at Tukums city stadium – 388 spectators. This game took place on October 6th and resulted in a 0:1 loss.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW35 vs FK Auda at Tukums city stadium – 135 spectators. This game took place on November 3rd and resulted in a 0:3 loss.
FK Auda
Despite playing competitive and interesting football, FK Auda had the lowest attendances of the entire league. Average attendance per game in 2024 season was 229, but the median was only 222. Arguably one of the most exciting teams to watch, FK Auda should really put more effort into attracting fans to the Skonto Stadium in 2025.
There were 2 games with the highest attendance – GW19 vs RFS (1:3) on and GW29 vs Riga FC (2:2) at Skonto stadium in Rīga – 450 spectators.
Game with the lowest attendance was GW15 vs FS Jelgava at Mežaparks Sports Village in Rīga – 52 spectators. This game occurred on May 23rd and resulted in a 0:1 loss.
Conclusion
All in all, another year of net attendance increases bodes well for the future and sustainability of the Latvian top tier, despite absolute numbers still being relatively low. Of course, Latvia’s total population is only 1.8 million people, so while per capita attendances looks somewhat more encouraging, just under 500 spectators per match will not give fans much bargaining power with their clubs in so far as financial contribution of matchday revenue is concerned. Still, any step forward is a step in the right direction.