Riga FC and Kauno Žalgiris will each host three UEFA Conference League matches between October and December, bringing travelling supporters to the two cities outside the summer tourism peak and creating a potentially significant local economic opportunity.
Thursday night secured more than another six European fixtures for Baltic football. Riga FC reached the league phase of a UEFA competition for the first time in their history after beating KÍ Klaksvík 2-1 at Skonto Stadium, completing a 2-1 aggregate victory following a goalless first leg in the Faroe Islands.
Kauno Žalgiris arrived to their debut league phase by a different route, losing their Europa League play-off against Beşiktaş 3-1 on aggregate despite winning the return match 1-0 in Kaunas. Defeat at that stage transferred the Lithuanian side into the Conference League league phase, where both clubs are now guaranteed six matches against six different opponents, three at home and three away.
The league phase runs from 15th October to 17th December, placing all six Baltic home fixtures well outside the traditional summer tourism peak. For Riga in particular, there is already a useful indication of how European club football can affect crowds and visitor demand.
RFS provide a recent Riga benchmark
RFS have twice reached the main stage of UEFA competition in recent years, first in the Conference League in 2022 and then the Europa League in 2024/25, providing seven relatively recent European home fixtures for comparison.
Their three Conference League group matches at Skonto Stadium in 2022 attracted 18,648 spectators between them. Hearts and Fiorentina both drew crowds of 6,747, while 5,154 attended the goalless draw against İstanbul Başakşehir, producing an average attendance of 6,216.
Two years later, RFS moved their Europa League fixtures to the larger Daugava Stadium and attracted 28,901 spectators across four matches. The 2-2 draw against Galatasaray drew 8,502, Anderlecht attracted 4,820 and PAOK 5,346, before 10,233 watched the historic 1-0 victory over Ajax in January.
Across the two campaigns, RFS attracted 47,549 spectator visits to seven main-stage European matches in Riga, an average of just under 6,800. Those figures include Latvian spectators and cannot be treated as tourism numbers, but the difference between 4,820 against Anderlecht and more than 10,000 against Ajax illustrates how strongly the identity of the opponent can change the scale of a European matchday.
Friday’s draw will therefore have consequences beyond sporting difficulty. A club with a large travelling support, strong local recognition and straightforward connections to the Baltics could generate considerably more activity around a fixture than a less accessible opponent from a smaller market.
How many travelling supporters could arrive?
UEFA requires home clubs to make at least 5% of their UEFA spectator capacity available to visiting supporters. It is a minimum allocation rather than a forecast of how many people will travel, while clubs can return tickets they do not require or, where circumstances allow, receive a larger allocation.
Kauno Žalgiris play at Darius and Girėnas Stadium, which accommodates around 15,000 spectators for football. Using that capacity as a guide, a standard 5% allocation represents approximately 750 visiting tickets per match, or around 2,250 across three home fixtures if every allocation is sold.
Skonto Stadium is smaller, with Riga FC listing its capacity at 7,300. The equivalent calculation produces roughly 365 visiting tickets per match and just under 1,100 across the league phase.
Together, the six fixtures therefore carry a nominal minimum-allocation capacity of around 3,345 away tickets. Actual numbers could be lower if visiting clubs fail to sell their allocation, or higher where additional tickets are made available and supporters travel without entering the stadium.
What could those visitors be worth?
The economic value of travelling supporters extends beyond their match tickets. Accommodation, food and drink, local transport and other spending can make a European fixture a small inbound tourism event in its own right, particularly when visitors stay for more than one night.
Using €300 in local spending per travelling supporter as an industry-strandard rule of thumb, 3,345 visitors would generate just over €1 million across the six matches. At €400 per supporter, the equivalent figure rises to approximately €1.34 million.
Under the same assumptions, Kaunas would account for around €675,000 to €900,000 across its three fixtures, while Riga would generate approximately €329,000 to €438,000. The calculation only covers supporters represented by the nominal 5% ticket allocation and does not include club delegations, UEFA personnel, journalists, sponsors, corporate guests or supporters travelling without tickets.
There is also domestic spending around European matches. Supporters travelling to Kaunas from Vilnius, Klaipėda or elsewhere in Lithuania, or to Riga from Liepāja, Daugavpils and other parts of Latvia, may not count as international tourists but still contribute to transport, hospitality and matchday activity. Estonian fans are likely to travel too, as they have done previously.
Different opportunities for Riga and Kaunas
Kaunas has the larger stadium and therefore the potential for a substantially bigger visiting section. It has also spent several years strengthening its international tourism profile, including its year as European Capital of Culture in 2022 and the addition of its modernist architecture to UNESCO’s World Heritage List in 2023.
European football brings a different type of visitor. Instead of persuading somebody to select Kaunas from a range of possible destinations, the fixture creates several hundred people with an existing reason to travel on a particular date. The commercial opportunity lies partly in extending that visit beyond the match itself.
A supporter arriving on Thursday and leaving on Friday morning provides a relatively limited period of local spending. Someone encouraged to arrive on Wednesday or remain through the weekend adds another hotel night, more restaurant and bar visits and greater scope for museums, tours and other attractions, with Kaunas’ compact centre making those elements relatively easy to combine.
Riga’s advantage lies more in scale and connectivity. Riga Airport and airBaltic’s network provide direct links with a wide range of European markets, while the concentration of accommodation, restaurants and nightlife around the centre makes short football trips relatively straightforward.
RFS have already shown that European club matches in Riga can draw between roughly 5,000 and 10,000 spectators depending on the opponent. Riga FC will have less capacity available at Skonto than RFS did at Daugava Stadium during their Europa League campaign, but visiting supporters will enter essentially the same hotel, restaurant and transport economy.
For both cities, the most valuable opponent from a tourism perspective may not necessarily be the biggest name in the draw. A club with several hundred committed travelling supporters and convenient direct flights could produce more visitor spending than a more glamorous opponent whose fans face expensive or complicated connections.
The clubs can benefit beyond ticket sales
Three guaranteed European home matches also give Riga FC and Kauno Žalgiris commercial inventory that is difficult to reproduce domestically. Larger crowds and international opponents create additional opportunities around hospitality, sponsorship, merchandise and food and beverage sales, while European competition offers commercial partners exposure beyond the domestic market.
The longer-term value may lie partly in what happens to those audiences afterwards. RFS’ seven European main-stage matches generated almost 48,000 spectator visits across two campaigns, creating repeated opportunities to sell tickets and merchandise and build relationships with people who may not regularly attend domestic league football.
Riga FC and Kauno Žalgiris can use their own league-phase campaigns in the same way, particularly through ticket-buyer data, newsletter registrations and repeat offers. A supporter attracted by Ajax, Hearts or another recognisable European opponent is more valuable to the club if that first visit eventually leads to domestic match attendance or another commercial relationship.
The same principle applies beyond the stadium. Hotels can target fixture weekends, bars and restaurants can prepare for travelling groups, while tourism organisations have several weeks between the draw and individual matches to place accommodation, transport and city information directly in front of supporters already considering the journey.
Six international fixtures between October and December will not automatically transform the visitor economy of either city, but they provide a concentrated series of events during a quieter part of the tourism calendar. RFS have already demonstrated the scale European football can reach in Riga, and this season Riga FC and Kauno Žalgiris will have three opportunities each to turn continental football into activity that extends beyond the stadium.
