Alessandro Seren Rosso
Registered User
You'll see it soon when giant football stadiums for the World Cup stand half empty after the tournament.
Russian football is low level (maybe not low, but average), Russian hockey is world class. The KHL, generally speaking, is the top attended league in Europe (ok technically the Swiss one is better, but just technically) and there are no signs that things can't be even better, even in the near future. Kunlun has really dragged the av. attendance down, at least numbers-wise, there's no doubt that with a good-attended Kunlun the av. attendance can reach very good levels. All this account for a big difference in the attendance picture of hockey vs football.
Unfortunately, there is little doubt that the new football stadiums will be half empty (although most of them look fantastic). The same wouldn't apply to hockey arenas. Maybe for CSKA the situation will not be optimal anyways, but let's start with the new arenas in Novosibirsk and Yekaterinburg (this latter coupled to the good budget and teams that they are having lately) and the av. attendance league wise will be absolutely better. At least fans in Novosibirsk and YKG seem to be loyal, in Russia/CIS I think that results have a more dramatic influence on the av. attendance if compared with other countries, for a number of reasons.