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Best attended domestic sports leagues in the world

(By average attendance per game)

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Most recent update: 10 February 2011

For the most recent related news stories, click here (for 8 Feb 2011 story), click here (for 31 May 2010 story), click here (for 21 April story) click here (20 April) or click here (January).

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NB: Professional leagues (see footnotes re: amateur leagues, or click here)

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NB: amateur leagues - there are some with higher average attendances than the leagues above, notably and most remarkably in US college football, where, for example, within the 2010 NCCA Division 1 FBS Conference, the 12-team Southeastern Conference (league) averaged 76,719 fans per game, and the Big Ten averaged 72,106, both more than the NFL. Annual NCCA football attendances are downloadable in PDF format, year by year from 1998, by clicking on this sentence. There is also a sportingintelligence feature on NCCA football attendances; click on this sentence to link.

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Sources

NFL

1: sportingintelligence.com research

1a: sportingintelligence.com research

2: http://tinyurl.com/yj3zxed

3: http://tinyurl.com/yj39bj6

NB: Separate official NFL statements about crowds from 2007 contradict each other

BUNDESLIGA

4: http://www.bundesliga.de/en/liga/news/2008/index.php?f=128851.php

AFL

5: http://www.afl.com.au/News/NEWSARTICLE/tabid/208/Default.aspx?newsId=68430

6: http://stats.rleague.com/afl/crowds/summary.html

EPL

7: http://tinyurl.com/qcz9ns

MLB

8: http://tinyurl.com/yjqdjpt

9: http://tinyurl.com/y9wbwfc

9b: MLB official release of 2010 numbers here

CFL

10: http://www.cfl.ca/article/cfl_attendance_continues_to_rise

11: sportingintelligence.com research

LA LIGA

12: http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/esp-primera-division-2008-2009/1/

13: http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/esp-primera-division-2007-2008/1/

NPB

14: Nikkan Sports, paper edition, 12 October (p.6) & 13 October (p.5) 2009, citing NPB-BIS.

(with thanks to Japanesebaseball for sourcing that, and again for 2010 numbers)

SERIE A

15: http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/ita-serie-a-2008-2009/1/

16: http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/ita-serie-a-2007-2008/1/

IPL

17: sportingintelligence.com research

NBA

18: http://www.nba.com/2009/playoffs2009/04/17/attendance/index.html

21: sportingintelligence.com research

NHL

19: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=417969

20: sportingintelligence.com research