Fewer Than 300 People Attend Multiple Matches For Saudi Arabia’s Billion-Dollar Professional League

In recent weeks, tiny crowds have been attending Saudi Arabian Professional League matches.

On Feb. 23, Al Riyadh tied 1-1 with Al-Raed in front of just 292 spectators. The match had taken place at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium, and this stadium’s maximum capacity is 22,188.

Al Hazem and Al Khaleej played against each other the next day at the Ar-Rass Stadium (Al Hazem Club Stadium), which has a maximum capacity of 8,000. This match ended with a score of 1-1 and was viewed by a crowd of 695 people.

Al-Fayha beat Abha 3-2 on Feb. 25. The latter team was beaten in the Al Majma’ah Sports City Stadium in front of only 840 people, even though the stadium can hold up to 7,000 attendees.

In the summer of 2023, Cristiano Ronaldo gained recognition as the first prominent European player to join the league when signing with Al Nassr after leaving Manchester United.

Since then, other noteworthy footballers like Karim Benzema, Neymar, Riyad Mahrez, Fabinho, Roberto Firmino, Jordan Henderson and Demarai Gray also chose to move to Saudi Arabia. Saudi teams have spent billions to lure top names to the league, forking over nearly $1 billion in the most recent transfer window.

Despite this surplus of top players, a match in early December 2023 between Al Riyadh and Al Hazem had a low attendance of 264 spectators. It took place at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium.

In late December 2023, Al-Riyadh had seen a minimal attendance of no more than 299 spectators at the Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Stadium, which is where they managed to secure a 1-0 victory.

Low fan attendance at Al-Riyadh matches has been a recurring theme throughout the season. Earlier on in December 2023, 144 fans showed up to watch them in a match against Al-Khaleej, which resulted in a 1-0 loss.

Transfermarkt’s average attendance figures for the current season indicated that over half of the league’s teams have an average of less than 10,000 attendees. Al-Riyadh had ranked at the bottom with an average of roughly 1,515 fans per game.

Those figures are very low, especially when considering that they amount to only 10% of the 15,000 that the Prince Turki bin Abdul Aziz Stadium could have held.