Clubs in small cities

Hello all,

I have been wondering about this question for a while and maybe some of you know the answer.

Is there a connection between the size of a city a club is from and the possible attendance levels?

The reason I'm asking is that I want to start at a small club in Sweden. There are two possible clubs.

Pitea IF or Gamla Uppsala.

Pitea is a city with 22.000 inhabs but Uppsala has 144.000 inhabs.

When I bring the clubs to the highest divisions and CL, will there be a significant difference in the numbers of people attending my matches, just because Gamla comes from a larger city?

Thnx,

Werner

Home attendance is independant of local population, but attendance levels may (depending on the researcher or whomever built the database) have been initially set with local population in mind. Where possible, I'm sure real averages were used. But once the game gets rolling, attendance will change depending on team form (short term) and reputation (long term). I've my fictional French side, based in a town with population ~6000, regularly draw well over that figure...

The presumption is that people will come from miles around to see a quality team, not only from the neighborhood...

Thanks for your quick reply.

Based on your post, a club from a city with 22.000 inhabitants, can bring in good amount of spectators.

If Keighley (a modest spot in northern-ish England) were to have a Premier League side qualified for Europe and a stadium capable of holding them, they'd draw 50,000+, just like any other Prem team.

Every club has a set minimum, average and maximum attendences in the database. These can increase as the club grows. AFAIK city does not have an influence on attendences.

IRL Hoffenheim is an example of this where there average attendance is much bigger than the village they come from after having come up the german leagues.

Thanks for your quick reply.

Based on your post, a club from a city with 22.000 inhabitants, can bring in good amount of spectators.

My friend got a 70000 capacity stadium with IFK Mariehamn and Mariehamn is such a small town with only 11000 inhabitants

If Keighley (a modest spot in northern-ish England) were to have a Premier League side qualified for Europe and a stadium capable of holding them, they'd draw 50,000+, just like any other Prem team.

Funny you should say that there is a team in Keighley called Silsden who are making their way up the lower leagues they regualry get 900 people + watching and offer free games to season ticket holders of Leeds, Bradford etc so faiweather fans are rife at Lower Division teams do not think this would be incorparated though in FM.

Funny you should say that there is a team in Keighley called Silsden who are making their way up the lower leagues they regualry get 900 people + watching and offer free games to season ticket holders of Leeds, Bradford etc so faiweather fans are rife at Lower Division teams do not think this would be incorparated though in FM.

Taking the tanget to a whole new level, my fictional team in FM08 had a multi-billionaire buy up the Keighley & Craven Athletic Club (an association of cross-country runners IRL) and forcing them to field a football team. KCAC won Europe for the first time in 2019...and their 60,000 seat stadium was packed every match, despite Keighley having a population of 50,000+.

My friend got a 70000 capacity stadium with IFK Mariehamn and Mariehamn is such a small town with only 11000 inhabitants

And it's not like it would be realistic for people from other cities in Finland to go and watch Mariehamn, and it wouldn't really be practical for people from Sweden. Purely for geographical reasons you could never get an audience bigger than around 10000 on a regular basis.

There should definitely be some kind of cap based on the population of towns/cities within reasonable travelling distance of the club, and on the number of other clubs competing for that supporter base.

I thought city inhabitants and attractiveness are factors that can influence the choice a players makes when negotiating with different clubs.

I thought city inhabitants and attractiveness are factors that can influence the choice a players makes when negotiating with different clubs.

Not sure about cities, but countries have development attributes, reputation etc which highy influence which players will move there.

Not sure about cities, but countries have development attributes, reputation etc which highy influence which players will move there.

There is a 'city attractiveness' attribute in the database that appears to be mainly based on the city's size. Obviously this can be a factor in player choice, you can see it in game when the player is "looking forward to moving his family into a more cosmopolitan area".

in reallife

SC Heerenveen, dutch premier league

Heerenveen has 29000 inhabs

Stadium Abe lenstra Stadion capacity of 26100 seats

And Heerenveen has also a big speed skating stadium capacity 10800

....

Not sure how it works in the game, but in real life the more popular a club becomes the wider their fanbase expands. Top tier clubs draw not only fans from their city but also from the surrounding region. This may or may not be simulated in the game, but that is how it goes for real clubs and their support base. Keep in mind it works the other way around as well. Think of how many clubs used to be A level with the cooresponding fan base 70 years ago but today are minor clubs with only a handful of supporters.

Yes, but in quite a few places there is a limit of what can be achieved based on the population that is in realistic travelling distance/time. Mariehamn as mentioned above was a good example of that as it is on a group of islands and would find it very difficult to draw support from the mainland.

Yes, and there is the opposite problem too. a club like Wigan or Bolton can rise from lowly status to "The Best League In The World" [TM] but still have a ceiling on their support because there are mega clubs with long tradition in their neighbourhood (from the cities of Manchester and Liverpool in their cases).