The FA Cup is dying a slow and completely understandable death due to years of practically zero upsets at the business end of the competition (that is the final and semi final stages) and clear messages from the suits that this competition will simply not be prioritised ahead of the interests of a few teams who compete in European competitions.
Understandably, fans have started voting with their feet and are just not showing up anymore - but I don’t want this to be an article that concentrates on how we can get more fans through the turnstiles for rather uninspiring cup matches. Instead, I want to actually look at the low attendance figures we and other EFL clubs have been getting and actually attempt to understand why this has been happening to a cup competition that was once considered one of the most prestigious in world football.
There was a time when the FA Cup was actually considered more important than the league and this was reflected in attendance figures. Our highest ever attendance was for an FA Cup replay versus Derby County in 1933 and our most famous moment post-Second World War was when we, a Second Division side, beat one of the best First Division teams in the country in the final of the FA Cup in 1973. For a seven-year period between 1973 and 1980 the cup was actually pretty exciting, with three winners from outside the top flight (us in ‘73, Southampton in 1976 and West Ham in 1980). However, since then not a single club from outside the top flight has managed to win it. The only real shock was probably when Wigan won it in 2013 despite being relegated.
It's probably quite natural then for fans of Championship clubs (and some Premier League teams) to largely stopped caring - with a few exceptions (looking at Leeds United mainly) - and it’s not too common to see a sellout crowd for a Championship club in the early stages of the competition unless they are playing a decent Premier League side. For clubs lower down the pyramid, the competition remains somewhat exciting as they have quite good odds of drawing a team far better than them and the prospect of a ‘cupset’ remains a factor in driving their crowds.
Looking at this season, Sheffield United only got 6,100 for a home game against Cardiff City, Fulham mustered up just under 16,000 playing Watford and Birmingham had a similar attendance, as did Middlesbrough and Sunderland, with Coventry getting around 20,000. Furthermore, Hull managed only 10,000 and Reading only 7,000. Premier League clubs like Southampton, Leicester City, Crystal Palace and even Chelsea and Aston Villa were below capacity. Granted, a few of those clubs played away from the usual 3pm Saturday slot for games (although that’s becoming less common each season) but it’s still lower numbers than they’d get for a home league game played midweek. Just to be clear, I’m not having a go at any of these clubs because clearly it’s not usual for these fanbases to get such low numbers and that points to more systematic problems hampering ticket sales.
So, what is actually going on? As I’ve mentioned, no club outside of the top flight winning the FA Cup for so long leads to an attitude of these games in early rounds being somewhat pointless and simply “getting in the way” of an attempt to either stay up or win promotion. How many times has a player of ours been injured in a cup match and then missed a number of league matches as a result? Ross Stewart and now Aji Alese, off the top of my head. I’m sure it’s a similar story for Hull City or Blackburn Rovers or Millwall. As a result, managers put out weakened teams, especially when facing lower league opposition or teams in the same division. This then causes fans to not view these as proper matches, even if on paper they are. This problem is far more pronounced in the League Cup and EFL Trophy - the FA Cup has been relying on its reputation to carry crowds but that won’t last forever and is clearly on its last legs.
Another problem is cup draws being boring a lot of the time in the early rounds, especially if you get a home game. Sheffield United already play Cardiff twice in a season, we do the same versus Stoke and Coventry vs Sheffield Wednesday is the same situation. It’s no coincidence that most of the poorly attended games in the FA Cup are Championship sides facing other Championship teams. There’s not really a solution to that - outside of clubs giving away tickets or offering half price pints or something similar. For Sunderland specifically, letting people sit in their own season ticket seat right away, instead of only opening a portion of the ground, would give us an extra few thousand in my opinion.
The main issue though is that the people running this sport simply don’t care about the FA Cup enough for fans to be actively interested in it. Scrapping replays and picking bad games for TV (why on Earth would many people want to watch Villa play West Ham when they already face each other twice?) has definitely helped kill some of the ‘magic’ the cup is said to have. Prize money is abysmal as well, they simply don’t give clubs/fans enough incentive to care about the competition. Next season’s FA Cup games will be broadcast on non free to air channels as well. It just feels rather pointless knowing your club won’t win it and won’t even win much prize money if they do get far. Negatively, this likely won’t change because big clubs won’t burden themselves with an extra game a season - just so they can go and play post-season matches somewhere in Asia or North America!
Is there anything that can realistically be done to address some of these problems? As I’ve mentioned, I do believe opening up whole stadiums straight away when tickets go on sale and also offering financial incentives like cheaper pints/foods and tickets seem like rather easy changes. However, why should clubs take a financial hit to try and get a crowd from 15,000 to 20,000? It doesn’t make much difference to Sunderland, quite frankly.
Change has to come from the top otherwise it’ll be sides outside of the top flight suffering because of it. More structural changes may be necessary; bring back replays for all rounds, not just the first to fourth rounds. If you absolutely will not budge on replays then at least get rid of extra time - I can guarantee at least one person reading this chose not to go at the weekend because the thought of watching two weakened teams playing an extra half hour in the freezing cold probably didn’t appeal. Like I’ve said though, this article isn’t really about suggesting ways of getting more people through the turnstiles. I actually think lower attendances aren’t a completely bad thing because it makes it look bad on TV and sends a clear message to those in charge of the game that more needs to be done outside of appeasing the big six.
My overall point is that unless there are some pretty sweeping changes to both this competition and football in general (or in some cases bringing back certain things about the cup) nothing is going to change and eventually the cup will simply be an inconvenience rather than a welcome break from league action to focus on an interesting knockout tournament. That may seem negative but the game is being slowly killed by rich clubs and rich owners. If we are going to preserve the traditions of the English game then even a complete detachment between the EFL, non league sides and maybe some Premier League teams and the very richest clubs desperate to form some sort of Super League-esque tournament on a continent wide scale may become necessary. A sort of reverse 1992 if you like. At least that way football will be far more equal and money less of a factor.
