The future of the Italian stadiums: an empirical analysis

  7  1. Introduction “Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stop in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing more silent then the bleachers without people.” [Eduardo Galeano, 1985] Sport changes people; creates discussions, friends, dreams and strong competition. An English study conducted on 2,000 fans shows that the average fan thinks about his team every 12 minutes. For many footballs passionate, stadium is the teams’ world and fans are the heart. In the era of bankruptcy, where some club leaders pretend to react, without doing anything, stadiums could be strong vehicles to increase the revenues of clubs. A complete new structure, with fantastic innovative services, like hotel, bars, wireless connection, tours of the stadium, museum, is considered as a benchmark for all the clubs that want to increase their attendance and revenues. In many countries the stadium is considered as the heart of the club. In England, it is considered like a “home” not only for the team and the players, but also for the fans. Nowadays and during the last years, many clubs decided to renovate the old stadiums, and some decided to build a completely new stadium. In England, Manchester United and Arsenal have the two most important, beautiful and furnished stadiums. Every five years, Manchester United renovates its stadium, while Arsenal, in 2005, built a complete new stadium, called Emirates. Missing out these two, also the other English stadiums are vanguard structures. The stadium of Bolton has a 5 stars hotel inside; West Ham stadium offers a new Bluetooth service for fans to download Internet packages. Due to all these characteristic and services, English stadiums are the most frequented in Europe, with an average attendance of 36,000 fans per match. Also in Spain, clubs have complete and functional structures, like