Over 27,000 fans came to Rostov’s new stadium for the first game of the Premier League season.
The World Cup effect appears to have rubbed off on the Russian Premier League, which saw a 71 percent spike (скачок) in attendance this week following (после) the country’s hosting of the global football tournament.
Russia spent an estimated $3.4 billion on constructing nine new stadiums from scratch and renovating three others for the World Cup. The high maintenance costs of the new stadiums has fueled speculation that smaller cities may struggle to maintain the infrastructure without sell-out crowds.
The first matchday of the Russian Premier League’s (RPL) new season, which kicked off (стартовал) with eight games last weekend, set an attendance record of 169,600 fans, the league said in a press release Tuesday, with an average of 21,200 fans per match.
Last year, the same eight games were attended by less than 100,000 fans.
