In recent months, Israeli football has experienced its best period in recent years: the youth team and the young team have recorded great achievements, Maccabi Haifa was successful in the Champions League, and the Israeli national team qualified for the Euro playoffs.
The fans, according to an investigation by Israel Hayom, vote with their feet and come to the fields in larger numbers.
In the summer, the leagues administration decided to financially incentivize teams that bring an audience.
The goal?
That games between the small ones, which are broadcast on television, will not look like training games with 200 fans.
Another goal is to help these teams develop the next generation of fans.
The method is this: a team that succeeds in bringing a minimum of 750 fans to each of its home games, will receive a grant of NIS 350,000 at the end of the season.
On the other hand, for each game in which a team failed to meet the same standard, they will be deducted NIS 50,000 per game.
Most of the small teams, it appears from the data, decided not to give up the financial grant and work every game to bring fans to the stadium.
The data presented here are the official data of the administration of the football leagues.
The comparison made is between the first round of the current game season - 22/23 - and that of last season - 21/22.
It is possible that by the end of the season there will still be a deviation, because some teams played seven home games in this round compared to six last season and vice versa, but the emerging trend is clear.
A significant leap for B.T.R
In the first round of the Premier League, 58,304 fans came on average in each round, compared to 49,907 in the previous season.
This means an increase of about 17 percent in the general amount of fans who come to the fields.
When you go down to higher resolutions and check the differences of each group, you discover the real change.
Among the big teams, Beitar Jerusalem is the team that registered the biggest jump: it increased the number of fans at its home games by an average of 95% - that is, almost twice. last season.
Beitar Jerusalem fans. Doubled the amount in the stands from last season,
The reasons for this are apparently the change of owners and the new connection of the audience to the group.
Another interesting figure is related to the number of fans that the Yellow-Blacks bring to the away games: Beitar is ranked second in this round, and if Maccabi Haifa had not recorded the away game in the derby this round (over 20 thousand greens), it would also have passed.
Among the smaller teams in the league, Ironi KSH recorded the most significant increase in bringing a home crowd to the field, with 80% more, compared to what it brought in 21/22. In numbers - KSH brings 1,575 fans on average to a home game, compared to 871 last season.
True, it is not of the same magnitude as the Jerusalemites, but for such a group it is a tremendous leap.
The impressive thing is that KS puts these figures not against the big teams but in less sexy matches such as against Bnei Raina, Hapoel Haifa, MS Ashdod, Bnei Sakhnin and Hapoel Jerusalem.
Kiryat Shmona fans.
The club is making efforts to fill the stands, photo: Maor Alxalsi
The CEO of the northern group, Yossi Adri, took the issue as a project, and they set up buses for the fans, distribute free tickets in schools, do various promotions, and thus bring in more crowds.
Another small team that registered a significant jump is MS Ashdod, which achieved an increase of 62% compared to last season.
On the other hand, she had two home games in which she did not meet the threshold - against Sektia Nes Ziona and against Hapoel Hadera.
So she has already lost NIS 100,000 from the grant.
MS Ashdod fans.
encouraging data,
The big ones are satisfied
The return effect of Eran Zahavi and the fact that Maccabi Tel Aviv is fighting for the championship also had a big impact on the number of fans that the Yellows brought to the home games in Bloomfield. For example, in the first round of last season Maccabi achieved an average of 16,462 fans compared to 23,264 this season, which means an increase of approx. -41%. And this, when it has not yet hosted Maccabi Haifa or Hapoel BS this season.
Maccabi Tel Aviv fans.
The Eran Zahavi effect did its thing, photo: Danny Maron
And if we mentioned the greens, there is no doubt that their great success in the Champions League took its toll.
Almost every home game of the Greens is sold out, so in the games against Hadera or Ness Ziona there were more than 29 thousand Green fans, while in the games against the major leagues it must set aside 10% of the total tickets for them, therefore in the final weighting the amount of Green fans that come every game to Semi Ofer stands at 27,903, which is a 24% increase compared to the first round last season.
Hapoel Tel Aviv, which played two home games without an audience in this round, maintains an almost identical home record compared to last year. 8,574 this season compared to 8,343 last season. This number would probably have increased if the Reds' game against Beitar had been attended.
And finally, there is one team that no matter who it played against, failed to meet the administration's threshold in any of its six home games, and that is Ness Ziona, which registers a very low average of 370 fans in its home games, and it will probably no longer receive the financial grant.
Nes Ziona fans.
Disappointing numbers, photo: Barney Ardov
were we wrong
We will fix it!
If you found an error in the article, we would appreciate it if you shared it with us
/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/S7UVDTX7DREC7DXVCZN6MEKGBY.jpg)
