20/04/2016 10:03
2016 European Cup season ends with second-best attendance figures of all time
News from the CEV
Luxembourg, April 20, 2016. As many as 754,934 fans attended matches of the 2016 European Cups. These figures account – and by far – for the best result since the all-time record set at the end of the 2010-2011 season with 770,436. 520 matches were played since last October – when the 2016 season got underway with the first rounds of the Challenge Cup – up to the Final Four tournament of the men’s Champions League, which took place on April 16-17 at the iconic TAURON Arena in Krakow. The average attendance per European Cup match stands at 1,452 people, the very best result since 2011 where the same figure stood at 1,482.
The record-breaking crowds who witnessed the final act of the 2016 CEV DenizBank Volleyball Champions League – Men in Poland’s second largest city helped set an all-time record of attendance in Europe’s elite club competition: 294,181 fans have indeed attended 102 matches contested since early November up to the grand finale where last Sunday Zenit KAZAN claimed their fourth CL crown coming from behind to edge Italy’s TRENTINO Diatec at the tie-break. On average 2,884 fans per match were in attendance, which is also a record-breaking performance.
The figures are not less impressive for the women’s Champions League with as many as 169,063 fans who attended a total of 94 matches up to the ‘big final’ where hosts Pomì CASALMAGGIORE claimed a historic gold medal in what was only their first ever participation in the competition – and in the European Cups as well.
179 clubs registered to participate in the 2016 edition of the European Cups and delivered a total of 520 matches. If Zenit KAZAN and Pomì CASALMAGGIORE made history with their fourth and first Champions League crown, respectively, Germany’s BERLIN Recycling Volleys celebrated their first major international title in the CEV Volleyball Cup – Men whilst Russia’s Dinamo KRASNODAR retained the women’s CEV Cup title they had won in 2015.
As for the 2016 CEV Volleyball Challenge Cup, Italy’s rookies Calzedonia VERONA and Romania’s C.S.M. BUCURESTI topped the final podium, thereby celebrating their first ‘coup’ on the international scene. Calzedonia’s success story is a truly remarkable one since the men coached by Andrea Giani were making this season their first ever appearance in the European Cups whilst C.S.M. BUCURESTI turned into Romania’s first club ever to win a European Cup title.
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