---
title: "Do new stadiums attract more spectators?"
date: 2026-10-24T12:38:27Z
lang: en
author: "Dmitrijs Kravcenko"
canonical: https://balticfootballnews.com/do-new-stadiums-attract-more-spectators/
categories: ["Insights"]
---

# Do new stadiums attract more spectators?
_Kauno Žalgiris’s growing crowds have added a new dimension to Latvia’s National stadium debate while, across Europe, the correlation between better grounds and bigger audiences has developed through promotion campaigns, long winters and unexpected European adventures._

When Vilius Armanavičius met a late corner against Sūduva on 12 April 2025, his header struck the post. Kauno Žalgiris had already hit the woodwork earlier in the second half, and the match at the Darius and Girėnas Stadium would finish goalless. Around the pitch, however, 6,675 spectators had gathered for what the league described as its biggest crowd in two decades. The draw left the home side sixth in the table, with the championship they would eventually win still months away. 

By the end of that season, Kauno Žalgiris had won their first Lithuanian title and nearly quadrupled their average home league attendance. Across the club’s home league fixtures, the average rose from 465 in 2024 to 1,841 in 2025, an increase of approximately 296%. A team accustomed to audiences measured in hundreds, which is fairly standard in the Baltics, had begun attracting several thousand people to its biggest domestic fixtures. 

Across the border in Latvia, where the national stadium debate repeatedly returns to the small crowds at domestic matches, poor National team performance, and eye-watering construction estimates, such growth challenges the assumption that existing attendance represents a fixed ceiling. People deciding whether to go to football are also deciding how to spend an afternoon or evening – a covered seat and a convenient journey home can make that outing more attractive, particularly to someone whose attachment to the club is still developing.

That being said, Kaunas’s transformation took more than just the opening of a stadium, which is a nuance that is easy to forget. The rebuilt Darius and Girėnas had welcomed its first match on 16 October 2022, when Vilnius Žalgiris beat Hegelmann in the Lithuanian Cup final. Kauno Žalgiris subsequently established themselves there, but the larger audience was slow to follow. On 26 June 2024, an official crowd of just 350 watched their 2–0 league victory over TransINVEST in the same ground. 

The club, however, whether through experience of their prominent basketball parent organization or even just rudimentary due diligence, was already working to make their matchday experience more appealing. In April 2024, supporters could buy a package covering four home matches from €20, while the stadium offered a fan zone with games and appearances by the club mascot. Match tickets included free public transport in Kaunas during the three hours before and after the fixture. The offer extended beyond admission to the stands, addressing the cost and convenience of the whole outing. These efforts were under way well before the attendance breakthrough, and the team’s first championship added another attraction in 2025. While it is difficult to separate the stadium’s contribution from the effects of better results or the club’s work to attract supporters, what is clear is that a larger audience emerged around an improving team in a venue that had initially hosted some very modest numbers. 

## **Beyond the opening-season rush**

Across the Baltic sea, in Sweden, Hammarby experienced a faster change after leaving Söderstadion for Stockholm’s Tele2 Arena in July 2013. A year into the move, Swedish public broadcaster SVT reported that the club’s average attendance had increased by 73% compared with the preceding autumn and spring. Djurgården, which had also moved into the stadium, recorded a 45% increase over the equivalent period. Both were averaging a little over 15,500 across their first year in the new venue, although Hammarby were still playing in the second division. 

At the time, Hammarby chief executive Henrik Kindlund was already looking ahead to a return to Allsvenskan. In July 2014, he predicted that the combination of the club and its new stadium would lift interest to “a level that Swedish football has not seen for many years”. By the time Hammarby secured their return to the top flight at the end of the 2014 season, their home league average had reached 20,451, the highest in Swedish football. Eight of their 15 home matches attracted at least 20,000 spectators, while even the smallest attendance was 11,936.

Economists have often described the initial attraction of a new stadium as a honeymoon: curiosity brings people through the gates, after which some drift away. Work by Jan van Ours, for example, followed three decades of Dutch football and found that the larger crowds attracted by new stadiums often remained long after the buildings ceased to be new. His 2024 study examined 11 Eredivisie clubs between 1989/90 and 2018/19, comparing eight that acquired new or completely rebuilt grounds with Feyenoord, PSV and Utrecht, which continued using their existing stadiums. By comparing attendance changes across these groups, he accounted for the wider growth in Dutch crowds and estimated an average stadium-related increase of around 40–50%. The effect remained positive across the 15-season period following opening, although experiences varied – AZ recorded the strongest relative increase, while Willem II showed no statistically significant gain attributable to its stadium. Van Ours suggested that a new ground could persuade people who previously watched on television to try attending, with enough enjoying the experience to keep returning.

Hungary’s extensive stadium-building programme produced a less reassuring pattern. A study published in 2026 examined the country’s top two divisions from 2005/06 to 2023/24 and found an attendance increase lasting approximately five seasons after new stadiums opened. Improvements in the proportion of seats occupied did not last beyond the first season, and results varied considerably between clubs. Additional spectators had arrived, but the facilities remained substantially under-utilised.

Still, a club can increase its audience while moving into a ground that is still too large for it. The Hungarian researchers associated persistent underuse with the incentives surrounding fully taxpayer-funded projects, arguing that financing arrangements and continued work to attract supporters were important to the longer-term outcome. A larger crowd could represent progress for the club without generating enough income to justify the size or cost of its new home. 

## **Football in ice and snow**

In Iceland – an example often used to justify infrastructure build-out for a boost in performance, including most recently by Riga FC head coach Adrian Gula in an interview with Baltic Football News – much of the infrastructure story unfolded away from spectator stands. By February 2011, UEFA was reporting seven indoor sports halls and 111 outdoor mini-pitches around the country, alongside a sustained emphasis on coach education. By 2017, Iceland had appeared at Euro 2016 and qualified for its first men’s World Cup. UEFA described mini-pitches with underfloor heating that allowed year-round use, helping football continue through conditions that would otherwise restrict it. At the same time, redevelopment of the national stadium, Laugardalsvöllur, remained on a blueprint only. The international breakthrough had developed alongside investment in everyday football facilities while the federation was still considering how to improve its principal venue for spectators. 

The attention generated by the national team was extraordinary. Speaking to UEFA in 2017, federation president Guðni Bergsson recalled shirt sales and worldwide interest that had exceeded expectations during the European Championship. The federation was considering how to turn that attention into revenue for football at all levels, while a redeveloped national stadium offered the prospect of better ticketing and hospitality income. 

Domestic league attendances followed a different course. The Icelandic federation’s historical figures show an average of 1,107 spectators per top-flight match in 2015, falling to 975 in 2016 and 838 in 2017 before recovering slightly to 862 in the World Cup year of 2018. All four were 12-team seasons containing 132 matches. International visibility had grown enormously, yet the league’s average audience in 2018 was approximately 22% below its 2015 level. Simply put, the facilities needed to develop players and those needed to attract spectators serve different purposes. An indoor hall creates more opportunities for coaching during winter; a comfortable stadium changes the experience of attending a match. Iceland’s investment helped football become more accessible, but the domestic attendance figures show that international success and widespread enthusiasm do not necessarily translate into more people watching domestic football on weekly basis. 

In the Faroe Islands, the redevelopment of Tórsvøllur gradually gave the national team a ground with roughly 5,000 seats, all under cover. The work was completed in 2021, following several rounds of investment that included UEFA support for seating and floodlighting. The resulting stadium also accommodated domestic cup finals and European club matches, giving it a role beyond the international calendar. 

During the five home World Cup qualifiers in 2021, a combined 17,244 spectators attended, averaging approximately 3,449 per match. The audience varied with the occasion: 2,666 came for Israel, while Denmark attracted 4,620. Two years later, KÍ Klaksvík’s European run brought another kind of crowd to Tórshavn. After eliminating Ferencváros and Häcken from Champions League qualifying, KÍ reached a third-round tie against Molde. Their own ground, Djúpumýru, had a capacity of 1,200 for European matches, so the home leg moved to the national stadium. On 8 August 2023, 4,584 spectators watched KÍ win 2–1. 

The club subsequently became the first Faroese side to reach the group stage of a UEFA competition. The larger stadium allowed several thousand more people to attend the Molde match than could have fitted into Djúpumýru’s European configuration and gave a club from outside the capital somewhere suitable to stage one of the most significant occasions in its history within the islands. 

For small football countries, demand for capacity can be uneven across both the season and the clubs producing it. A shared national stadium can accommodate those peaks without requiring every club to maintain a ground large enough for its most exceptional European fixture. Its usefulness then depends partly on the access it provides when an unexpected sporting opportunity arrives.

## **The audiences of Riga**

When Skonto returned from Barcelona in August 1997, their Champions League qualifying tie was still alive after a 3–2 defeat at Camp Nou. A reported 12,000 spectators attended the second leg at Daugava Stadium, where Sonny Anderson scored the only goal in a Barcelona side featuring Luís Figo and Pep Guardiola. Twelve years later, Ventspils brought Europa League group-stage football to Skonto Stadium. Their October 2009 meeting with Sporting attracted a reported 4,500, who watched Juris Laizāns equalise from the penalty spot before João Moutinho’s late winner gave the Portuguese visitors a 2–1 victory. 

RFS’s Conference League campaign brought two sold-out evenings to Skonto in autumn 2022. The September visit of Hearts attracted 6,747 spectators, including a travelling contingent that the Scottish club’s manager, Robbie Neilson, estimated at about 2,000. Hearts won 2–0, and RFS subsequently held İstanbul Başakşehir to a goalless draw at the same ground. When Fiorentina arrived for the final group fixture in November, all available tickets had again been sold, with another 6,747 attending the 3–0 defeat. 

In October 2024, RFS were hosting Europa League fixtures at Daugava. Around 8,500 spectators watched them recover from two goals down against Galatasaray on a cold, rainy evening, with Jānis Ikaunieks and Lasha Odisharia scoring in a 2–2 draw. November’s crowds were smaller: 4,820 attended against Anderlecht and 5,346 against PAOK. The final home fixture brought Ajax to Riga on 23 January 2025, when 10,233 watched Adam Markhiev score the winner under open skies in exposed stands.

Latvia’s national team drew 1,414 spectators to Daugava for its Baltic Cup match against the Faroe Islands in June 2024, which the hosts won 1–0. That autumn, its Nations League fixtures at Skonto attracted 5,001 against North Macedonia in October and 5,543 against Armenia in November. In June 2025, another 6,083 attended the World Cup qualifier against Albania at Skonto, where Antonijs Černomordijs scored at both ends in a 1–1 draw. England’s visit to Daugava on 14 October brought the qualifying campaign’s largest home crowd, with 10,404 watching Latvia’s 5–0 defeat.

Latvia’s national stadium would serve an audience extending beyond the regular following of any single club. International qualifiers would provide recurring fixtures, supplemented by European fixtures when Latvian teams progressed, as RFS did in 2022 and 2024, and Riga FC this year. The federation’s February 2026 shift from the Lucavsala build-out towards acquiring and reconstructing Skonto placed an established football ground at the centre of the proposal, with the LFF identifying its existing infrastructure and public transport connections among the advantages of the site. 

When all is said and done, there is a reasonable basis for expecting improved facilities to attract additional spectators. Using existing attendances as a ceiling overlooks the possibility that the experience currently offered helps determine how many people attend; and present matchday experience is far from optimal, as the freezing Ajax supporters at Daugava will willingly attest to. Equally, the stadium’s capital and maintenance costs would still have to be met through an unsuccessful qualifying campaign or an autumn in which no Latvian club reached a European league phase.

Much would depend on decisions made before the first tickets even go on sale. Affordable rental terms would give clubs more opportunities to use the ground, while agreements covering concerts would need to accommodate the uncertainty of European qualification. For supporters, the change would be experienced through the cost and comfort of an evening at football. A roof that keeps the rain off and a straightforward journey home could help persuade an occasional visitor to return for a less glamorous opponent, with qualification already out of reach and another cold evening forecast. In this respect, experience of Kaunas is both encouraging but also something of a cold shower for those framing the new National stadium as a remedy to all (or many) problems in Latvian football, whereas it will only be the beginning of difficult work of attracting people to come to it.