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The Alliance of European Hockey Clubs published its annual attendance study on Wednesday, ranking 376 clubs across 29 leagues.
As the DEL announced on the last day of its regular season, the German league set a new attendance record for European leagues this season and German club Kölner Haie set a new record for clubs, each breaking the records they set last year.
According to both the DEL and the EHC Alliance, the Cologne-based club drew an average of 17,829 fans per game to Lanxess Arena, which has a capacity of 18,500. Last year, the team’s average was 16,993.
Prior to last season, the club record was 16,399, set by Swiss club SC Bern in 2016-17. Bern had an incredible run of 21 consecutive seasons leading Europe in attendance from 2001 to 2023 – not counting 2020-21, when pandemic-related restrictions severely limited attendance everywhere. Bern finished third this season, behind Die Hie and the KHL’s SKA Saint Petersburg, which was able to return to its large home rink in December after it was badly damaged in a fire last summer.
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Top 10 clubs in European attendance 2024-25undefined“There were no big changes in the rankings this season as the first 11 teams were the same ones as last year, with a couple swapping positions,” said Martin Merk, who led the study. “The number 12 team, Red Bull Munich, jumped from the 60th position to 12th, thanks to the brand-new SAP Garden which almost doubled their capacity to 10,400.”
The DEL’s overall average attendance was 7,781, up 8.64 percent from the 2023-24 season. In second was Switzerland’s National League, which averaged 7,365.
Other clubs to set domestic attendance records were Sparta Prague, which pulled in an average of 12,804 to set a new Czech Extraliga mark for the third consecutive season, and the Sheffield Steelers, who set a new Elite Ice Hockey League mark with at 7,938 per game.
To show how much European hockey attendance has grown in the 21st Century, Kölner Haie led Europe in attendance in 2000-01 with an average of 11,529 fans per game, with Bern and Finland’s Jokerit Helsinki being the only other teams to pass the 10,000 mark. This season, 12 teams from six different countries eclipsed that mark.
“In North American leagues the growth was smaller,” Merk continued. “The National Hockey League average attendance went up by a half a percentage point, and the ECHL by 1.64 percent while the AHL took a slight step (0.34 percent) backwards. The attendance also went up in all three Canadian junior leagues (OHL, WHL and QMJHL), by approximately three percent.”
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Kölner Haie Shatters Own European Single-Season Attendance Record Kölner Haie will break its own single-season attendance record for a European club, according to a press release from the German club on Friday. Continue reading...
