The Fan at the Heart of the Game

As discussions unfold regarding the sale of Portuguese League audiovisual rights, one aspect of the national football ecosystem warrants particular attention: the paradoxically fragile relationship between the sport's immense popularity in Portugal and the actual attendance at stadiums.

Portugal is a nation passionately devoted to football. Players, coaches, management, commentators, and an entire industry revolve around a phenomenon with undeniable economic, social, and cultural weight. Yet, stadiums often fail to reflect this widespread engagement.

In the 2025/26 season, the Liga Portugal recorded an average attendance of 11,781 spectators per game, totaling 2.96 million across 306 matches. This figure is down from 12,295 the previous season. A comparison with international contexts makes this picture even more concerning: England's Championship, equivalent to Portugal's second division, surpassed 22,000 spectators per game, while League One, the third tier, reached approximately 10,647. This means a third-tier competition in England draws almost the same crowd as Portugal's top flight.

The paradox becomes even more striking when contrasted with television viewership. In 2025/26, Liga Portugal garnered 41.3 million viewers, its best result in six seasons and significantly higher than the 34.1 million in 2024/25. Clearly, more people are watching football, but not necessarily more people are attending matches in person.

The issue isn't a lack of interest in the sport, but rather the difficulty in converting that interest into regular stadium attendance. The reasons are numerous and well-known: high ticket prices, inconvenient kick-off times with matches often held on Sunday and Monday evenings, rudimentary accessibility at many stadiums, a lack of comfort, and, crucially, a pre- and post-match experience that many clubs have yet to make sufficiently appealing to fans. Added to this is a structural challenge for smaller and mid-sized clubs to foster a close relationship with their local communities.

The French example is illustrative in this regard. Ligue 1 concluded the 2025/26 season with an average of 27,588 spectators per game and an 87.4% occupancy rate, with eight clubs exceeding 90%. In England, as Tim Wigmore notes in The Telegraph, the Premier League's transformation into a global television product hasn't prevented match attendance from remaining a vital social, cultural, and community experience. The Championship and League One are particularly strong examples of this.

In Portugal, conversely, attendance remains overly dependent on the opponent, league standing, and the historical significance of the club. FC Porto, for instance, ended 2025/26 with a record average of 45,612 spectators at the Estádio do Dragão, a 12.3% increase from the previous season. This figure demonstrates that a passionate fanbase exists. However, it also highlights the concentration of this mobilization capacity among larger clubs, although Vitória Sport Clube has also consistently drawn solid attendances.

The crucial question, therefore, lies with the remaining clubs: how can they cultivate a stadium culture in cities where the team isn't competing for titles, doesn't boast hundreds of thousands of followers, and doesn't regularly participate in European competitions?

The answer cannot be limited to reducing ticket prices and occasional promotional campaigns. The entire product offered needs to be rethought. Fans shouldn't be viewed merely as individuals buying a ticket to watch 90 minutes of football, but as an integral part of the spectacle.

A match should be an enjoyable family and social experience. A ritual of belonging to the city, lived in comfort and safety, and emotionally enriching. Naturally, ticket price is also relevant. For a family, purchasing four tickets, arranging transport, parking, and food represents a considerable expense. Faced with the alternative of watching the game comfortably at home, enjoying multi-camera views and constant analysis, the stadium must offer what television can never replicate: a festive atmosphere, raw emotions, proximity to players and coaches, a sense of community, and involvement in the spectacle from start to finish.

There's also the legacy of stadiums built or renovated for Euro 2004. Many of these infrastructures are high-quality, but not all were designed for intense economic and social utilization throughout the season. In some cases, their sheer size has become part of the problem, with stands designed for crowds that now host only dozens or hundreds of fans, leading to an empty, uncomfortable, and soulless experience.

Portuguese football doesn't suffer from a popularity problem. Instead, it faces challenges in converting that popularity into community engagement. Overcoming this issue should be a central focus for Liga Portugal and its constituent clubs: transforming stadiums into places where fans, families, and local communities genuinely want to be and regularly interact. Because the vitality of football is also measured by the number of people who, on a weekend, are willing to leave their homes, sometimes in difficult weather conditions, traverse their city, brave chaotic traffic, and head to the stadium to cheer on their club. The challenge is to transform this experience into unforgettable memories.