What is it about?
Do new football stadiums really bring more fans? Using data from Hungarian football, this study shows that the answer is yes—but only for a while. New, publicly funded stadiums create excitement and boost attendance in the first few years, but that increase fades over time. In many cases, the bigger stadiums are still not filled in the long term. This means that while new stadiums can create a short-term buzz, they do not automatically solve deeper problems of fan demand. The findings highlight that public investment in sports infrastructure works best when it is combined with strategies that keep supporters engaged over time.
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Why is it important?
This study is unique because it looks at a large wave of publicly funded football stadium construction in Hungary, offering a rare chance to measure the real effects of stadium investment. It shows that new stadiums can attract more fans for a few years, but that this effect fades and many venues remain underused. The work is especially timely because governments continue to spend large amounts on sports infrastructure and need better evidence about what those investments actually achieve. The findings could help decision-makers design stadium policies that focus not only on construction, but also on long-term use, fan demand, and public value.
Perspectives
Personally, I see this publication as an attempt to ask a simple but important question: when governments spend heavily on new football stadiums, what do supporters and the wider public actually get in return? I was especially interested in separating the initial excitement around a new venue from its longer-term reality. What I find most revealing is that both things can be true at once: new stadiums do create a real boost in attendance, but that boost is not enough on its own to guarantee lasting success. To me, this makes the study relevant beyond football, because it speaks to a broader issue of how we judge public spending, long-term value, and policy effectiveness.
Professor Imre Fertő
Eotvos Lorand Tudomanyegyetem
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Public funding for new football stadia: overinvestment and underutilisation in Hungarian football, European Sport Management Quarterly, March 2026, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/16184742.2026.2638197.
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