soccer
[TheAthletic] The closest thing to a guaranteed near sell-out at the Club World Cup hasn’t been Boca or Lionel Messi. It has been Real Madrid. The club has the highest average attendances at 67,247 while pricing has not been dynamic as tickets to their games have, mostly, held their value.
![[TheAthletic] The closest thing to a guaranteed near sell-out at the Club World Cup hasn’t been Boca or Lionel Messi. It has been Real Madrid. The club has the highest average attendances at 67,247 while pricing has not been dynamic as tickets to their games have, mostly, held their value.](https://external-preview.redd.it/mTDUS--klGigz9PiXwQejNC-ZH6fipW0Nfu2XEZuGFM.jpeg?auto=webp&s=0e54fc755af6d81995df235f17506893b13ee2d4)
Discussion
i’m shocked the most popular and successful team in history is popular!
Big if true
Lies! Deception! Everyday more lies...
who would have thought one of the best teams in the world attracts the highest number of fans
It is a know thing that Real Madrid is estimated to have the largest international fanbase of all football clubs and have the largest social media following, the only two other clubs that are in the same ballpark of popularity are Barcelona and ManU and they aren't in the competition, if Barça was it would also fill stadiums, teams like PSG, City, Chelsea also have a large global fanbase, but it's at a different scale than those three teams, and who knows if ManUÇ will maintaing it's popularity if it doesn't get it's shit together.
Liverpool and Arsenal would probably sell more tickets than Man City and Chelsea as well
Liverpool would 100%
Yea, after all, it’s not as if other “one of the best teams in the world” are playing at the CWC.
You joke, but they don't have the Premier League Champions (And Runners-Up), the La Liga Champions or the Serie A Champions. I know they use different metrics for qualification, but that's still objectively 4 of the best teams in the world that aren't playing.
No doubt that Liverpool, Barca, and the like would have helped attendance. But if PSG, Bayern, City, and Inter can’t get Americans to watch football, I don’t think much changes.
I think it depends on the ages, tbh. PSG and City have only become big internationally in the last decade or so. Americans who have been watching or seeing highlights since the 70s/80s may well be more inclined to go watch a Barcelona or Liverpool game as they've been well known since then.
Well Americans watch significantly more Premier League than anything else.
I'm not from the states, so i'm not sure what's up there. But the bigger brand teams certainly have a huge pull in Asia. So you're definitely going to see a bigger turnout for the likes of Liverpool, Barca, Chelsea, Arsenal, United, than you would for Bayern, PSG, City, Inter.
Maybe if the games weren't on at 3 o'clock in the afternoon in the middle of the week that might help some
Right? I feel like people keep ignoring this fact.
Because it’s inconvenient to their yankslander agenda.
leave champions lol. if we in our sorry shit state were somehow playing there we'd still near sell out too
Not one of the best. The best!
They never mentioned psg?
You must mean Chelsea, PSG is the best team that was in the UCL… terms and conditions may apply
We’re here to show that the Conference League is the REAL European Champion!
One of the best? Lmao, they are clearly the best.
Biggest club in the world, from a spanish speaking country with most games in/close to Miami sells out stadiums. Color me shocked.
I mean, even the game in Philadelphia vs Salzburg got 64k attendance.
A lot of Latinos who want to feel Spanish support RM. Others who reject dictatorship support Barca.
Bro, what?
Going to start asking people I see in RM shirts here in Brasil if they secretly want to "feel Spanish" or if it's just a love of tyranny that prompted them
Are you Spanish?
Are you?
Professional yapper 🥀💔
Real Madrid was Franco's team, no?
Atleti was.
Neither of them really were. Sure Atletico Aviación was a thing but Franco never really cared for a team per se, he just used them to better Spains image. There’s a reason he was a huge supporter of the European Cup
Messi plays in their league. Anyone wanting to see him and able to pay will have done it by now, i assume.
Real Madrid is one of the biggest teams in the world, if not the biggest. So it's no surprise that they'd be the biggest draw.
Also if you buy a ticket to watch Messi and Messi doesn't play then you're stuck watching Miami vs Porto...
Unless it's the Ballon D'or you'd expect Madrid to turn up at the stadium and play.
No "one of". They're the biggest, it's not close. There is no other team in the same tier.
Barca would also be able to do this, if we are just talking popularity then barca are certainly in the same tier.
if we are just talking popularity
We aren't. He's responding a very specific claim.
But I thought this whole thread was in the context of filling stadiums but fair enough if im mistaken.
Not when the Messi affect priced supporters out. The price to a TFC when they pkay Miami is absolutely ridiculous.
So the world biggest club has the highest average attendances? This seems very obvious
“This was because the team and manager Xabi Alonso were circling somewhere over Washington D.C. at the time they were due to appear after storms had delayed their flight north from Miami, where they had opted to return to train in Palm Beach after their quarter-final win in New Jersey. It is about 1,200 miles between the two venues.”
Anyone know why the team chose travel back to Miami between games in NJ/NY? Training facilities not as good? Otherwise what reason is there to do this?
The semi final yesterday looked pretty sold out to me
70,556 in attendance is pretty solid
“But there were 10.000 empty seats this tournament is a failure!”
Vs 76k for the RM game the previous weekend
What a stupid headline
People really underestimate how much the 2022 and 2024 UCL campaigns boosted Real Madrid's popularity among kids and teens. The whole comeback schtick, along with social media edits made them a new generation of fans.
Right. As opposed to them already being super popular thanks to Ronaldo, and the three-peat CL campaigns. Madrid/Barca have always been top3 brands in football since Pep/Jose days.
Not to mention the decades of history that preceded that.
That's important for them in the long run, but I don't know that it's likely to be the main driver of sales right now. Those fans are mostly still kids, and adults have a lot more spending power. Sure, some of them may badger their parents into taking them, but in my experience the vast majority of families at matches include a parent who's a fan themselves.
Why am I being attacked? Wasn’t drawing with an amateur team punishment enough?!
Biggest club in the world, this is not surprising
Real Madrid or Barcelona would have sold out in this tournament. I’ve said this before and Portuguese fans argued back believing they are more popular in some regions of the USA.
One thing I learned when coming to the USA is how incredibly big our clubs are with Latin Americans. Especially Central Americans.
Just the other day in El Salvador a singer was yelled at by the crowd for wearing a Real Madrid jersey until he took it off. People here call them plastics but that’s not true. They’re true fans that cheer and cry for the team.
Barca, ManUtd or Liverpool could have probably sold out tickets as well.
Biggest club in the world gets the most fans. Shocking really
When you have the most glory hunter fans it’s expected, isn’t it?
They’ve should have made all the knockout stages in LA if you could make those matches at 6pm would have been sold out games. Texas would have had good attendance numbers too depending on the time of the match
Why they gotta photoshop fans in pics then?
Real Madrid outsells Inter Miami?! Wow!!
Went to the game in Charlotte legit saw Madrid jerseys the moment I got to Charlotte
You mean to tell me that the most successful team in Europe is popular? This is coming to me as a massive shock.
Plastics gonna plastic
They’re not plastic they just happen to support the most successful club in the world from across the world!
But they have to wake up at 4am to watch them, have some sympathy!!
4 am…More like 12:45 am for us
Wonder if they even know anything about the history of the clubs lol. Ask them what Bernabeu did during the civil war and they have no idea who the guy even is lmao.
Not sure why you would be anti causal fans 😂 that’s how the game grows . I do get it tho we’re both south london palace fans so it’s different for us
The world doesn't need more plastic real Madrid fans
Not at all obvious to me the game growing is good for existing fans.
How is RM getting more fans good for anyone bar Real Madrid?
You guys complain about empty seats for international tournaments and when people are attracted to real you complain again. Real may be their entry to the sport. The same way the lakers were for many basketball fans
I’m not complaining about empty seats.
Not sure why you would be anti causal fans
Because they're the worst?
Lots of fair weather fans in the US.
NO ONE CARES!
Im confused by the title, isn't Real Madrid seen as more of a guarentee than either Boca or Messi? This is hardly surprising.
People in the us can watch messi every week for a price much lower than at the cwc.
When Messi joined, he made tickets for any games he was possibly gonna play, sky rocket.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/4ROjcXYAsR
I have Chicago fire season tickets.
First row at midfield, second tier. Best view in the stadium.
Reselling the messi game has paid for a big percentage of the price of those season tickets the last 3 years.
That’s actually super smart man, happy for you.
They still have to watch Chicago Fire, though. (former Fire season-ticket holder myself)
You're happy for a ticket scalper? Why?
They’re a season ticket holder, they aren’t a scalper lmao. If dumb people want to be separated from their money just to see Messi once then so be it.
Yeah I saw him play at the copa america centenario already in Chicago. His first non-friendly in the usa.
He came in as a substitute and got a hat trick in under 20 minutes.
That was in his prime. The stadium didnt even sell out, it shows how much the sport has grown the last 10 years.
I also saw him in 2007 in Barcelona with the treble winning team.
How is season ticket pricing for MLS compared to other sports in the US? Is it super expensive like basketball, hockey and football or relatively affordable like baseball?
In general its closer to baseball games. Although not all baseball teama are affordable, the chicago cubs are way more than the white sox.
It depends by mls team. The fire are one the cheapest because our stadium is one of the largest and we never sell out.
The cheapest ticket behind the goal is 20 dollars a game. That price hasnt changed in 20 years.
My midfield first row is around 45 a game. Thats gone up since covid, it used to closer to 30 in 2021.
It's cheaper for sure. Bit when lafc hosted inter Miami the bad seats were going for 1200+
The one time Miami has played in Houston since he joined the league, tickets went to nearly $200 instead of the typical $30-35. And then he ended up being injured anyway! So no, this isn't really true
Idk he’s coming to DC next month and tickets are like $2-$300. The cheapest seat to watch him vs psg for example was like $60~.
I thought about paying it myself but i dont think he will play against dc due to fatigue, load management and an inter miami without messi will easily beat dcu since theyre shit
People in Miami*
Do they not play away?
MLS clubs raise the ticket price every time Miami play at their ground iirc
Do they play in every city every week?
America has no away culture.
And anyone trying to get tickets for a Miami game Messi will play in will quickly find out what's up if they thought they could buy one for a normal price.
There are literally people in this thread saying they paid for their season ticket just by reselling Miami Away.
That has nothing to do with "away culture" the folks who were paying multiples of face value for the ticket to see Messi weren't Miami fans, they weren't even soccer fans. It was people wanting to get Instagram pictures of themselves seeing Messi, just like all the celebrities that went to his games in LA or New York.
That 1st year was ridiculous. There are still lots of Messi shorts in the stands when Miami visits, but now demand is just 20% over normal ticket price or so.
It does however have everything to do with Miami fans, who is who are presumably being referred to with the comment "People in the us can watch messi every week for a price much lower".
Non-Miami fans trying to buy tickets to Messi games at their home stadium get gouged. Travelling supporters who obviously get their tickets from the club at set prices obviously would not (if they existed).
They DO exist and those tickets are not resellable. Atlanta has a large pool of FREE away game tickets available to season ticket holders.
https://www.atlutd.com/tickets/away-match-program-faq
I don't understand why the ONE thing you felt you could respond to from that comment is the one thing that blows your argument up.
If away support existed, clubs wouldn't be desperately handing out tickets for free, would they?
US away games are logistically vastly different than other countries because of our size. The free ticket is a fraction of the travel and hotel costs to travel.
People in Ft. Lauderdale*
Lol its a fun turn watching Europeans have no clue how big the US/Canada is.
Tbh Canada especially looks bigger on the map than it is due to the issues of projecting a sphere on 2D.
We know, we just don't care
Ehh that’s not really true. Anytime Miami is in town for your local mls team you have to pay an arm and a leg i think i paid maybe $200 for first row corner flag seats for one of madrids group stage games. Inter miami tickets are easily more than that anytime Messi is in town
Why doesn't MLS just get Real Madrid to join their league? Are they stupid?
I know it's a joke, but it wouldn't be a bad idea for the MLS to have an expansion team owned by Real Madrid with the same branding and everything...
You don’t need Real Madrid. We have Real Salt Lake at home.
who needs mbappe when you have diego luna
Real Madrid USA
I almost vomit
worked great for Chivas
Are you trying to compare Chivas with Real Madrid?
They're pointing out that Chivas USA (same concept) was a colossal shitshow, on and off the pitch. It was so badly run that eventually the rest of the league bought them out, shut down the whole club, and sold the rights to the LAFC ownership group to start over a few years later.
Yeah no. This is a pathetic idea. It's already been done in cricket and the fans hate it.
Well yeah, Real Madrid in Cricket IS a bad idea.
do you actually enjoy this artificial shit?
Yeah, who doesn't want to watch Real Madrid? What a cool match to take a kid to!
I'll always remember Arsenal vs Sampdoria in some friendly cup. Seeing Real madrid at like 9 would be crazy.