The Bundesliga, introduced in 1963, had a spectator average for its first season of over 27,000. The inaugural season was seen by over 6,6 million spectators with

VfB Stuttgart Verein für Bewegungsspiele Stuttgart 1893 e. V., commonly known as VfB Stuttgart (), is a German sports club based in Stuttgart, Baden-Württemberg. The club's football team is currently part of Germany's first division, the Bundesliga. VfB S ...

being the best-supported team. After a slight increase in the second season figures declined to an all-time low by 1972–73, in the wake of the

1971 Bundesliga scandal The Bundesliga scandal (''der Bundesliga-Skandal'') refers to the malicious, for-profit manipulation of games in the 1970–71 German football championship season. History The manipulation of games was revealed when the president of Kickers O ...

, when the league averaged just over 17,400 spectators per game. In this season

Rot-Weiß Oberhausen Rot-Weiß Oberhausen is a German association football club in Oberhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia. The club was formed as ''Oberhausener SV'' in December 1904 out of the merger of ''Emschertaler SV'' (1902) and the football enthusiasts of ''Oberh ...

also set the all-time low for support, becoming the first team to record an average of less than 10,000 spectators when the club drew just 6,941 per game.1. Bundesliga – Zuschauer
'' kicker.de'', Bundesliga spectators. Retrieved 17 June 20151. Bundesliga – Zuschauer
'' kicker.de'', Bundesliga spectators by season. Retrieved 17 June 2015 From 1973 onwards, until 1979, figures improved again for the Bundesliga, especially after clubs like

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...

and

returned from the

2. Bundesliga The 2. Bundesliga ( ) is the second division of professional football in Germany. It was implemented 11 years after the founding of the Fußball-Bundesliga as the new second division for professional football. The 2. Bundesliga is ranked below ...

. The latter became the first club to record an average above 50,000 when it drew 55,559 per home game in 1977–78. The league experienced another sharp decline in the 1980s, dropping to an average of just over 18,000 in 1985–86. It made a slow recovery from there and accelerated from 1991, after the German reunification in 1990. Since then the Bundesliga has experienced a steady increase, reaching its all-time high in 2011–12 when it attracted 13,805,514 spectators, twice as many as in its inaugural season, and recorded an average of 45,116. Since 1998–99 season

has been the best-supported club each year, having surpassed the 80,000 mark per game in 2011–12. At the other end of the scale only on nine occasions have clubs attracted an average of less than 10,000, these being Rot-Weiß Oberhausen in 1972–73,

Wuppertaler SV Wuppertaler SV is a German association football club located in Wuppertal, North Rhine-Westphalia. The city was founded in 1929 out of the union of a number of smaller towns including Elberfeld, Barmen, Vohwinkel, Cronenberg and Ronsdorf – e ...

in 1974–75,

Bayer Leverkusen Bayer 04 Leverkusen Fußball GmbH, also known as Bayer 04 Leverkusen (), Bayer Leverkusen, or simply Leverkusen, is a professional football club based in Leverkusen in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The club competes in the Bundesliga, t ...

in 1981–82, 1982–83, 1984–85 and 1987–88, FC Homburg in 1987–88 and 1989–90 and

SpVgg Unterhaching Spielvereinigung Unterhaching () is a German sports club in Unterhaching, a semi-rural municipality on the southern outskirts of the Bavarian capital Munich. The club is widely known for playing in the first-division association football league ...

in 1999–2000. Stuttgart and Hannover, which are based in large cities, were relegated for the 2016–17 season, which caused a reduction in the average number of spectators. Both teams returned to the Bundesliga for the 2017–18 season, whereas Darmstadt and Ingolstadt, the two bottoms teams in attendance, were relegated.

Spectators

The spectator figures for league since the inaugural 1963–64 season. The 1963–64 and 1964–65 seasons were played with 16 clubs in the league, the 1991–92 with 20 clubs and all others with 18 clubs. The last eight matchdays of the 2019–20 season, the majority of the 2020–21 season and some matches at the start of the 2021–22 season were played behind closed doors due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

References

External links

Official Bundesliga website
{{Bundesliga

Attendance Attendance is the concept of people, individually or as a group, appearing at a location for a previously scheduled event. Measuring attendance is a significant concern for many organizations, which can use such information to gauge the effectiven ...

* Football club attendances