A single match with over 60,000 attendees, the Chinese Super League stands out in Asia.

Written by Han Bing In the 20th round of the Chinese Super League, two matches had attendance figures surpassing 60,000, which is the second time this season. Apart from the 60,000-capacity Super Ticket Warehouse at Dalian Yingbo's Suoyu Bay Stadium, the Shanghai Derby also drew over 60,000 fans, breaking the attendance record for the Shanghai Derby and becoming the most attended professional match in Shanghai football history. This season, three teams in the Chinese Super League have home stadiums with a capacity exceeding 60,000, with Shanghai Shenhua's Shanghai Stadium being the only venue that can hold over 70,000 (72,000). Therefore, Shanghai Shenhua is considered to have the potential to break the single-match attendance record of 65,769 set in 2012 when Jiangsu Suning drew 1-1 with Guangzhou Evergrande, and it could theoretically surpass the 70,000 mark for a single match in the Chinese Super League.

Looking at this season's Asian football scene, the attendance levels in the Chinese Super League are also at a record high. Not only do they far exceed those of the Japanese and Korean leagues, but they also provide a significant challenge to the heavily invested Saudi league.

This season, the Chinese Super League features two "60,000-capacity ticket warehouses": Beijing Workers' Stadium (68,000) and Dalian Suoyu Bay Stadium (63,700). Additionally, with the Shanghai Derby surpassing 60,000 attendees for the first time, there have been as many as nine matches this season where attendance exceeded 60,000, placing the league at the top of Asian football. Dalian Yingbo alone accounted for seven matches, while Beijing Guoan and Shanghai Shenhua each had one. If not for the limited open seating at Guoan and Shenhua's home games, there would likely have been more matches with over 60,000 spectators this season. In contrast, in the Japanese and Korean leagues, 60,000 remains an unattainable attendance ceiling this season.

In the J1 League, only two teams have traditional home stadiums that exceed 60,000: Yokohama F. Marinos (71,600, Nissan Stadium) and Urawa Red Diamonds (62,000, Saitama Stadium). However, the newly built National Stadium in Tokyo, with a capacity of 67,800, occasionally serves as a temporary home ground. Despite having three stadiums with capacities over 60,000, not a single match in the J1 League has surpassed 60,000 attendees in the 26 rounds played this season, with the highest record being 59,574 spectators for the match on May 11, where Kashima Antlers defeated Kawasaki Frontale 2-1.

Among the 260 matches played, only five had attendances exceeding 50,000. Three of these matches were held at the newly built National Stadium, which has a capacity over 60,000. These include the match on February 16, where Tokyo Verdy lost 0-1 to Shimizu S-Pulse (52,500), May 3, where Shimizu S-Pulse defeated Nagoya Grampus 2-1 (52,800), and May 11, where Kashima Antlers beat Kawasaki Frontale 2-1 (59,600). Urawa Red Diamonds only exceeded 50,000 spectators twice in 14 home matches, with a maximum attendance of just 52,400 and an average occupancy rate of only 84.5%. Yokohama F. Marinos, with the largest stadium in the J1 League, recorded a maximum attendance of 41,981, with the highest occupancy rate being only 58.6%. The National Stadium, borrowed three times, had a maximum occupancy rate of just 87.93%.

The last match in the J1 League to exceed 60,000 spectators was on December 7, 2019, when Yokohama F. Marinos faced FC Tokyo (63,854 attendees). That year, only this one match surpassed 60,000, with two others exceeding 50,000. Meanwhile, the K1 League in South Korea has an even worse single-match attendance record this season, not even reaching 50,000 (48,000). FC Seoul's home stadium has a capacity of 66,700 (Seoul World Cup Stadium), but in the 12 home matches this season, only two have seen attendance over 40,000, with the highest record being 48,000 and an occupancy rate below 72%.

It is already certain that the Chinese Super League will have more than 10 matches with over 60,000 spectators this season. This figure is significantly ahead of the entire Asian region. No matches in the Japanese or Korean leagues have exceeded 60,000, and other major leagues in Asia have similarly few occurrences. In the three major leagues in West Asia—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE—only the King Fahd International Stadium (60,000) in Riyadh and the King Abdullah Sports City (62,300) in Jeddah have capacities exceeding 60,000. Since Cristiano Ronaldo's arrival in 2023, the highest attendance in a single match has only reached 59,892. After expansion, the King Fahd Stadium in Riyadh will exceed 70,000 in capacity, but whether it can break the 60,000 ceiling remains uncertain.

In the 2024/25 season, the Indian Super League only had one match with an attendance exceeding 60,000, which occurred in March during the final round, where Mohun Bagan defeated Goa 2-0 (61,591 attendees). However, there are three teams in the Indian Super League with home stadiums exceeding 60,000. The Indonesian Super League powerhouse Jakarta has a home stadium capacity of 82,000, but last season's single-match attendance record was below 40,000.

The only league that poses a threat to the Chinese Super League is the Iranian Super League, where a total of four teams have home stadiums with capacities exceeding 60,000: Tehran's giants Esteghlal and Persepolis (78,100), Sepahan in Isfahan (75,000), and Tractor Sazi in Tabriz (66,800). In the second round of the 2024/25 season, there were five matches in the Iranian Super League this season with attendance exceeding 60,000, all held at Tractor Sazi's home ground. Among these, there were two matches with 70,000 and 90,000 attendees, and one match with 80,000. Even the national derby between Esteghlal and Persepolis last season only had an attendance record of 50,000. However, the excess attendance numbers at Tractor Sazi's home ground raise questions about their accuracy, and given the modern professional league's emphasis on safety, these figures are often not regarded as valid attendance records. Additionally, the Iranian league had a total attendance of only 2.04 million last season, averaging 8,733 per match, which is less than half of the Chinese Super League's attendance this season.

Tractor Sazi's home ground is Sahand Stadium in Tabriz.