SPL ranks as 3rd-most popular football competition among Singaporeans: study

SINGAPORE — Where does the Singapore Premier League (SPL) rank in terms of popularity among football fans in the city-state? The answer is more surprising than what you may have thought to be.

As much as the league gets regular cynical jibes from disillusioned fans in the city-state, a recent survey commissioned by Yahoo Southeast Asia shows that the SPL is actually the third-most popular league or competition among 2,000 respondents.

About 18 per cent of them chose the local professional league as a football competition in which they watch and support, ranking the SPL behind only the English Premier League (43 per cent) and the Uefa Champions League (25 per cent).

This is more than the support for well-known football competitions such as Spain's La Liga (10 per cent), Italy's Serie A (8 per cent) and Germany's Bundesliga (7 per cent).

SPL began life as the S-League in 1996, following Singapore's departure from Malaysian football competitions. While it has been held continuously for the past 27 years, it has often struggled for crowd support and occasionally been derided for the poor footballing standards.

There has been a recent revival of sorts, as top teams like Albirex Niigata (Singapore), Lion City Sailors and Tampines Rovers battled for top honours with entertaining football. That has drawn fans back to the stadiums, as reflected by the results from the "Yahoo Singapore Football Study" survey, which was conducted by international research firm YouGov and released on 7 August in conjunction with the launch of the second season of the football vodcast "Footballing Weekly".

Football viewing and match attendance habits

The survey also looked at Singaporeans' football viewing and match attendance habits. And here's another surprise: despite their appreciation for the "Beautiful Game", Singaporeans are divided when it comes to paying to attend matches or watch live football telecasts.

When asked by the survey if they would pay to attend a live football match at the National Stadium, about 45 per cent said they would not - even if it was the Singapore national team or a visiting top European club playing at the 55,000-seater stadium.

Even among those who were willing to pay, it is evident in the survey that they are reluctant to fork out more than $50 for the tickets. Only 12 per cent of the survey respondents are willing to pay over $50 to watch a match at the National Stadium, with only 4 per cent will to pay over $100.

Meanwhile, 21 per cent of respondents are only willing to pay up to $20 for a National Stadium ticket, while 17 per cent are willing to pay between $20 and $50.

With a wide menu of global football matches available on television networks or online, viewing such games has become a regular recreation activity enjoyed by a sizeable chunk of Singaporeans.

The Yahoo football survey found that 45 per cent of the respondents said that they tune in to watch live matches online or on TV every week, with 32 per cent saying they spend up to three hours each week watching football online or on TV.

More of such survey findings will be discussed over the upcoming episodes of "Footballing Weekly". So don't forget to listen in to the vodcasts when they are released on Yahoo Southeast Asia's YouTube channel on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Follow the new EPL season with all segments of this week's "Footballing Weekly" show on YouTube. If you wish the hear the show in its entirety, visit the show's Spotify and Acast pages.

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