Attendances at the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup 2012 in Japan

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Permalink Reply by 2xehxtxemyk65 on August 19, 2012 at 19:32

Looks like they were double headers.

  The poor figures for the Japan match is worrying. FIFA would want to keep an eye on these figures. Difficult to justify giving the 2019 World Cup to Japan based on such poor attendance for the home side. France or Spain might be better bets.

Permalink Reply by Women's Soccer United on August 19, 2012 at 20:06

I haven't checked the averages or anything but my initial thought was that 500 short of 10,000 was good for an U-20 group match, I will look into other attendances to see other figures

Permalink Reply by 2xehxtxemyk65 on August 19, 2012 at 20:26

@WSU -- the 2010 U-20 world cup was held in Germany as a practice run for the adult World Cup just as the 2014 will be in Canada.

   The opening match between germany and Costa Rica was attended by almost 24 000 spectators. Germany-Colombia pulled 15 500 and Germany-France a surprisingly low 26 000. Indeed, the best attended group match was Sweden against North-Korea which got >26 000. The worst attended matches were 2400-2500 spectators, that is comparable with today´s.

   To be fair, the numbers never really took off in the knock-out stages.

Permalink Reply by Women's Soccer United on August 19, 2012 at 20:30

Wow, that is a huge difference, thanks for the numbers

Permalink Reply by 2xehxtxemyk65 on August 19, 2012 at 20:41

The most likely explanation for the difference in numbers would be ticket price.

   The ladies´ Champions League final this year in the Munich Olympic stadion sold out partly because the price was right: a family ticket admitting 2 adults and 2 children was 20€. The cheapest adult tickets were 7€ and the most expensive 10€. This should be compared with most German teams charging 7€ at the gate -- in Sweden it is more like 12-15€ dependeing on which team.

   In this year´s world cup for icehockey the organisers completely misjudged the market. The stadia stood empty. After too long the ticket prices were slashed and the upper tiers were closed but the damage was already done.

   I suspect that these U-20 matches are overpriced.

Permalink Reply by Ken Suzuki on August 20, 2012 at 10:25

I understand what you say. For your information a ticket for the yesterday’s game was sold for 3,000 JPY, or $38, for a seat in the front-side stand, i.e. $152 if mom, dad and 2 kids went.

Also let me add a couple of points to consider.

1. The game was played in the city of Sendai, obviously as a spirit booster to the devastated area. But Sendai, even with its one million population, is located in the middle of rural regions, quite unlike Tokyo, Yokohama, Saitama, all in a cluster of cities with overall population of thirty million. The population of this country is very unevenly distributed. Believe or not, Japan, with one of the highest population densities in the world, also has A LOT of cities so sparsely populated that they cannot uphold their finance. Sendai is a capital of one of such districts, even without a pro-baseball team before 2005. I hope the attendance will improve as the games move to the populated side.

2. The local media never gave U20 women a decent coverage, and few player is known to public. This may be especially so only days after the nation’s heart was fully focused on their big sisters in London. We hope this U20 cup will bring the young Nadeshikos to attention, the way 2011 Germany did the same to their big sisters. After all, people paid even less attention to the regular Nadeshikos during the first half of 2011. They live in two different worlds before and after 2011 Germany.

But, yes, it is unlikely, even in future, that the Japanese pay attention to soccer the way Germans do. The most popular sport here is baseball, with big margin, with its decades of history and drama. One more “unfortunate” random factor is that mid-August is the season for a major baseball tournament, and so many people view it for hours day after day. If you think Japan never qualifies to host a world cup for this reason I won’t say it’s totally unreasonable. Please remember, though, that 2 of the 6 women’s world cups were hosted by USA where the league folded more than once, and another 2 was by China where how much support women’s soccer has I don’t know. But the Olympic Qualification was hosted by China last September, and I saw the games were played in almost empty stadiums. I could catch the coach Sasaki’s words, uttered in the middle of silence, so easily through TV.

Permalink Reply by 2xehxtxemyk65 on August 20, 2012 at 11:01

Thank you Ken for digging out this information and presenting it so clearly. Many thanks for all the background material also. Brilliant.

 

This June in Sweden Volvo sponsored the pre-olympic ladies´ tournament between USA, Japan and Sweden. There was little advertising, not much even on the Swedish FA´s own web-site. Totally uninteresting matches between the men´s team and great soccer-powers such as Iceland were trumpted instead. Maybe the executives at Volvo will haul the SvFF over the coals?  After all, what did Volvo get out of their largesse?

    Here was a tournament between the World Champions, the Runners-up and the bronze-medalists -- of the previous year to boot. The torunament might just as well have been held in Zabawanga, on the moon or, even, Iceland, for all that anyone in Sweden knew about it. Again, the ticket prices were on the high side and there were no family tickets as far as I know.  Not that this is any consoloation to the Nadeshikoettes ...

 

Permalink Reply by Gromit on August 20, 2012 at 12:55

3,468 people in Kobe for Korea PRD-Norway and Canada-Argentina.

2,582 in Hiroshima for Usa-Ghana and Germany-China.

Permalink Reply by Gromit on August 20, 2012 at 12:57

I meant Korea DPR, sorry ;o)

Permalink Reply by 2xehxtxemyk65 on August 20, 2012 at 14:52

Seeing that the geographical descriptor is not deemed ok, maybe you could try "KKR" based on the now fortunately defunct "DDR"? Just an idea.

Gromit said:

I meant Korea DPR, sorry ;o)

Permalink Reply by Women's Soccer United on August 20, 2012 at 16:39

Thank you :)

Gromit said:

3,468 people in Kobe for Korea PRD-Norway and Canada-Argentina.

2,582 in Hiroshima for Usa-Ghana and Germany-China.

Permalink Reply by David Kumagai on August 21, 2012 at 23:32

Please remember Rifu is quite some distance from Sendai, it's not really in Sendai at all. After the games were over there was only one train which could be caught by anyone without a car (due to the distance from the stadium to the station). Driving from Sendai also can take time, and the location of Miyagi Stadium has always been contentious. Two adults and two children could attend for 3000 yen. For all games, Under 20's can get a ticket for 500 yen. Some of the cheapest Category 1 seats are in a very good position, not too far from the most expensive seats (where I was).  The Category 2 seats were pretty good once the sun went down at about 5 p.m.

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