As the new season gets underway, fans are once again packing into stadiums across Europe. The return of domestic football brings its familiar sense of anticipation, with the appeal of experiencing the game live remaining as evident as ever.
That appetite is reflected in the numbers. More than 60 million spectators attended domestic league matches across Europe's "Big Five" leagues in 2025/26, while average attendance increased by 2.4% year-on-year to 34,402 spectators per match.
Yet the headline attendance figures only tell part of the story. In two of the five markets, existing stadium capacity is already close to fully utilised. Elsewhere, significant capacity remains available. At the same time, stadium redevelopment, new venues, and changes in league composition are increasingly influencing attendance trends.
Looking at attendance alongside stadium utilisation therefore provides a clearer picture of matchgoing demand across Europe's major leagues and where the opportunities for further growth may lie.
Big Five crowds continue to grow
Looking at the previous four seasons, four of the Big Five leagues recorded higher average attendances in 2025/26 than in 2022/23, although the trajectories have been markedly different.
The Bundesliga returned to the top of the ranking last season, averaging 42,308 spectators per match after a 9.4% year-on-year increase. It overtook the Premier League, where average attendance nevertheless rose to 41,636, the highest level recorded across the period analysed.
LaLiga ended the period 5.5% higher than in 2022/23, with average attendance reaching 30,952 last season. Ligue 1 has recorded the strongest growth across the period, up 15.7% from 23,677 to 27,396, despite a slight decline in 2025/26. Serie A was the exception last season. Having averaged more than 30,800 spectators in each of the previous two campaigns, attendance fell by 3.1% to 29,892.
Still, the headline movements increasingly need to be read in context. The Bundesliga provides perhaps the clearest example.
Its significant increase last season coincided with the promotion of Hamburger SV and 1. FC Köln and the relegation of Holstein Kiel and VfL Bochum, substantially changing the attendance profile of the league.
Hamburg averaged 56,947 spectators in 2025/26 and Köln 49,918. Crucially, neither club's drawing power is dependent on top flight status. Hamburg attracted more than 53,000 spectators per match in every season analysed since 2022/23 despite spending the first three in the second tier, while Köln remained close to 50,000 during its season outside the Bundesliga. Their return brought two of German football's largest and best-supported clubs back into the top division, highlighting both the depth of the country's matchgoing culture and the extent to which promotion and relegation can influence aggregate league trends.
In England, infrastructure was the more significant factor. Everton's move from Goodison Park to Hill Dickinson Stadium increased average attendance from 39,173 in 2024/25 to 52,132 last season, almost 13,000 additional spectators per match. Across the season, that represented approximately 240,000 additional admissions and more than half of the Premier League's total attendance growth in 2025/26. It is an example of additional capacity unlocking latent demand.
Major redevelopment projects can, of course, temporarily pull the numbers in the opposite direction. FC Barcelona's move away from Spotify Camp Nou during its redevelopment has constrained the capacity. Real Madrid is further along the same investment cycle, with the redeveloped Bernabéu supporting both increased capacity and a significantly enhanced premium and commercial proposition.
Structural changes at competition level also influence the picture. Ligue 1's 15.7% increase in average attendance since 2022/23 coincided with its reduction from 20 to 18 clubs from 2023/24, changing the league's composition and increasing the concentration of larger, better-supported clubs.
The four-year trends therefore also capture the evolving stadium landscape and, in some cases, the changing composition of the leagues themselves. Looking at stadium utilisation adds another important dimension: not simply whether crowds are growing but how much capacity remains to support further growth.
How much room is actually left to grow?
The Bundesliga operated at 97.4% average utilisation in 2025/26, marginally ahead of the Premier League at 97.1%. Both are effectively operating at the limits of their existing stadium inventory.
This also puts last season's attendance growth into perspective. Bundesliga average attendance increased by 9.4%, while utilisation rose by less than one percentage point. In the Premier League, average crowds increased by more than 1,200 spectators per match while utilisation slipped marginally from 97.6% to 97.1%.
The other three leagues operate at markedly different utilisation levels.
Ligue 1 reached 83.9% in 2025/26, up from 75.3% in 2022/23. LaLiga increased from 75.6% to 81.4% over the same period, while Serie A reached 80.7% last season, more than five percentage points above its 2022/23 level despite falling back from 83.3% the previous season.
All three nevertheless record higher utilisation than in 2022/23, with the largest improvement seen in France. At the same time, the gap to England and Germany remains substantial, leaving considerably more capacity available within the existing stadium base.
This creates different infrastructure challenges across the five markets. For Premier League and Bundesliga clubs, utilisation above 97% leaves limited scope for material attendance growth without creating additional capacity. Further upside is therefore increasingly linked to stadium expansion, redevelopment, and new-build projects, alongside the creation of higher-value premium and hospitality inventory.
In Spain, France, and Italy, there remains greater potential to increase utilisation of existing stadium infrastructure. Here, the opportunity is not necessarily to add capacity but to make better use of it while continuing to improve the quality and commercial potential of the stadium product.
Italy provides a useful illustration. Atalanta's redeveloped stadium demonstrates the potential of a relatively compact, modern stadium operating at high utilisation, while Fiorentina's reconstruction of the Artemio Franchi is temporarily constraining attendance in pursuit of a stronger long-term stadium proposition.
Different markets, different routes to growth
More than 60 million spectators attending Big Five league matches in 2025/26 reinforces the continued strength of live football but the scope and route for further growth differ considerably across markets.
For some clubs, that means creating additional and higher-value capacity; for others, there remains greater potential to improve utilisation and modernise the infrastructure already in place. Attendance growth remains strong but its next phase will increasingly be shaped by how clubs develop and optimise their stadium assets to support long-term growth and value creation.
Football Benchmark supports clubs across stadium business-related decision-making, from assessing matchday performance and benchmarking efficiency to advising on stadium development, redevelopment and monetisation strategies aligned with long-term financial objectives. To learn more, contact us at info@footballbenchmark.com.
