Neither Paris FC nor St.-Étienne You will have many reasons to remember the game. There were zero goals, few shots and a lack of drama in a rain-soaked draw. But the approximately 17 thousand fans who attended They can be seen as part of a philosophical exercise that could help shape the future of football.
In November, Paris FC announced that it would eliminate ticket prices for the rest of the seasonwith a couple of exceptions: one symbolic fee for fans supporting the visiting team and market rates for those who will use the boxes. The rest could go free of charge to the Stade Charléty—the compact stadium that Paris FC rents from the City Government.
In doing so, the club began what amounts to an experiment examining some of the questions in sport today: the relationship between cost and value; the bond between fans and their local teams; and what it is to attend a game in the digital age.
Parisian soccer is dominated by Paris St.-Germain, the eternal champion of France. Paris FC is a second division team. When you open your doors, the club believed it could increase attendance, attract families and foster some long-term loyalty. But I also sought to tell people that I was there.
“We have to be different to stand out in Paris,” said Fabrice Herrault, the club's general director.
Months later, crowds have increased by more than a third. Matches held at times attractive to school-aged children have been the most attended, indicating that the club is attracting a younger demographic.
Paris FC tickets were never expensive — Aymeric Pinto, a fan who has been attending for a decade, said attendees had been paying the equivalent of only about $6 — but abolishing even that barrier has made a notable difference.
The crowd of 17,000 (mostly) free spectators at the game against St.-Étienne set a record, but St.-Étienne has a large fan base. Inside the stadium, the number of green St.-Étienne shirts gave it away.
Still, for Paris FC, the overall pattern has been encouraging. The free-entry strategy will cost about $1 million — a combination of lost revenue and additional spending on security and staff — but the team says it has been worth it.
The positive results align with the experience of Fortuna Düsseldorf, a German second division club that pioneered the free tickets approach. Last year, Fortuna announced it would allow fans to enter some matches for free, the start of a five-year pilot program that could lead to the abolition of entry fees altogether.
Fortuna has already held two of the three free matches planned for the pilot phase. For the first, the club said it received so many requests that it could have filled its 52,000-seat stadium twice. For the second one, I could have done it three times. More significant is the impact outside of those games.
“Our average attendance has gone from 27,000 to 33,000,” said Alexander Jobst, the club's executive director. “Our merchandise sales have increased 50 percent. Our sponsorship income has increased 50 percent.”
Fortuna traditionally oscillates between Germany's first and second divisions; He is hoping to get promoted this season. However, it is attracting more fans than when it won the second division with ease in 2018.
Fortuna's reasoning was more ideological than that of Paris FC. Like all German soccer teams, it is owned by its members, and the club saw allowing fans free entry as a way to ensure that no one was prevented from attending due to price reasons.
Football, like all sports, is now largely a television business. The teams are financed with money from broadcast deals. And if football is now content, then part of that content is provided by the fans.
“Since the pandemic there has been a growing awareness of the role of spectators in the 'production' of sporting events,” said Luc Arrondel, a professor at the Paris School of Economics. He noted that there was consensus in the academic literature that the home field advantage is real and that the most important factor for it is the effect of a partisan crowd.
“The presence of fans in the stadium increases the attractiveness of the television product and, therefore, possibly, the value of the television rights.”
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