With the Serie A season now over, it emerges that attendances in 2016/17 are slightly down on 2015/16 with around 2,000 fewer fans passing through turnstiles on average every week on the peninsula. Overall, 8,375,867 supporters attended matches in 2016/17, down from 8,421,728 the previous season.
Inter continue to have the highest attendances in the league, with an average of 46,622 supporters attending matches in San Siro this season. Milan were the only other club to have an average attendance of over 40,000 (40,326), with champions Juventus (39,936), Napoli (36,601) and Roma (32,638) all seeing an average of more than 30,000 fans come through the turnstiles.
Despite only having the third highest number of fans in the stadium overall, Juventus are the only club who have come close to filling their ground (96% capacity filled). This is comfortably more than the second highest (Cagliari, 78%) and is almost twice the league average (58%).
Looking towards the bottom, the lowest attendances were posted by Empoli (9,409 on average) and Crotone (9,635). However, it should be noted that Crotone played their first three games of the season at Pescara’s Stadio Adriatico, as necessary refurbishment work on their own Stadio Scida overran the start of the campaign.
It is also worth bearing in mind that Empoli and Crotone have two of the smallest stadiums in Serie A and filled them at about the league average (Empoli: 56% full, Crotone: 60%). The most empty stadiums were at Chievo Verona and Lazio, who could only fill 30% of seats for home matches.
It’s no surprise that Juventus are the team that most Serie A fans came to see: half the league’s highest attendances came against the Bianconeri, though the Milan derbies had the highest attendances of all during 2016/17 (78,328 and 77,882). The third highest attendance was for Roma-Genoa (59,716), Francesco Totti’s last ever match for the Giallorossi.
In comparison with 2015/16, there was a drop of 45,861 supporters for the league as a whole, a marginal decrease that can perhaps be attributed to the promoted and relegated clubs: 654,549 fans went to watch Carpi, Frosinone and Hellas Verona in 2015/16, whereas only 590,272 saw Crotone, Empoli and Pescara’s home matches (though again, Crotone’s three games played on a neutral venue are not counted in this total).
Only one club – Palermo – saw a marked drop in attendances between the two seasons. The relegated Sicilians saw 22.63% fewer fans at the Stadio Renzo Barbera this season, while Sampdoria (9.66%), Fiorentina (7.88%), Roma (7.23%) and Napoli (5.57%) saw less drastic decreases.
Meanwhile Atalanta’s successful season saw nearly 20,000 more supporters visit the Atleti Azzurri d’Italia (a 6.29% increase), though the most notable increases were at Udinese (10.3%) and Bologna (12.12%). There were also higher attendances at some of Serie A’s biggest clubs, with Juventus, Inter and Milan all seeing increases of varying degrees.
