Where the Saudi Pro League’s average attendance figures would rank in Europe

The Saudi Pro League has been criticised for its low attendances, but how do the attendance figures in Saudi Arabia compare to Europe’s 39 biggest leagues?

It will come as no surprise that the biggest attendance figures come from Europe’s top five leagues. As things stand, the Bundesliga is currently the best-attended league in the world with average gates of 39,458.

The Premier League isn’t far behind in second place with average attendances of just over 38,000 during the 2023-24 campaign. The rest of the top five is then made up of the Serie A, La Liga and Bundesliga 2.

In total, there are 21 Europen leagues which have garnered a higher average attendance than the Saudi Pro League has managed this season.

As things stand, the Saudi Pro League has had an average attendance of 8,345 which is less than the Championship, League One, Serie B, La Liga 2 and Bundesliga 3.

Al-Hilal, Al-Nassr, Al-Ittihad and Al-Ahli each average over 17,000 fans, but some of the smaller clubs in the league drastically bring down the average for the league.

For example, Al-Riyadh have only managed to draw an average crowd of just over 1,300 this season and at times attendances have even dipped below the 300 mark.

Cristiano Ronaldo recently made the bold claim that the Saudi Pro League is better than Ligue 1, although they still have some catching up to do in terms of attendance.

The French league has averaged gates of 26,608 this season which is over 18,000 more than the Saudi Pro League has managed.

“To be honest I think the Saudi League is not worse than French league, in my opinion,” Ronaldo said.

“In [the] French league I think you have two, three teams with a good level. In Saudi now I think it’s more competitive. They can say whatever they want,