In Numbers: Average Attendance and Home Win % from the 2016 TSC

Written by Yohannes David

Indonesian football suffered a year with no league competition due to FIFA sanction. In the midst of it, the clubs urged PT. Gelora Trisula Semesta (GTS) to organize a long-term league formatted competition to salvage their existence, as well as other stakeholders involved. In late April 2016, GTS introduced the Indonesian Soccer Competition (ISC), consisting of 5 tournaments with different levels, from amateur to professional. On top of it, is the Torabika Soccer Championship (TSC).

Compared to the previous Indonesian Super League (ISL), TSC has several different systems and features, which some of them were newly applied. Among others, TSC was using a gameweek schedule system that ensures the entire team to play once a week. The new scheduling system replaced the previous “tour” system, which caused participating teams to have an uneven number of match on a given week.

Furthermore, the organizer launches several informative and communicative features for fans to engage with the competition. The official website provides a more informative news and updates, complete with detailed statistics. Though the performance of the website still has room for improvements, this initiative needs to be appreciated. They also utilized social media for dissemination of information and fan-based contents from the competition.

Other than the website, there was also a virtual game called IM3 Ooredoo Fantasy League, which adopted a similar popular game in the UK, the Fantasy Premier League. This is the first Fantasy League game to use Indonesian clubs and players, which was long-awaited by fans.

However, from some of the innovations that have been made and described above, those were not directly proportional to the average number of stadium attendance.

Compared to the previous 6 ISLs (excluding the 2015 edition), the average attendance in TSC is the second lowest, after the 2014 ISL. One of the cause which affected the number was the case of Persija Jakarta. They weren’t able to play in their original home, the Gelora Bung Karno Main Stadium, due to maintenance and renovation ahead of the 2018 Asian Games. After their fourth home game, they were forced to play in Surakarta. Worse, due to several delinquencies by their supporters, the Kemayoran Tigers had to play behind closed doors in their last 3 home matches, which eventually drastically reduced their attendance record.

Other than Persija’s case, the weekday schedules also affected the attendance number. 139 matches were held on weekdays (Monday to Friday), with the average attendance of 6,427 attendance, which surely below the average audience TSC 2016. Also, out of the 139 weekday matches, 73 of them were held before 18:00 local time. The average attendance of matches with that category is 5,124.

Other than attendance, other aspects which is also interesting to talk about is the home win ratio.

TSC’s home win percentage is 57%, third lowest compared to previous ISLs. It can be assumed that on TSC, the home advantage was not too significant to bring 3 points for the home team, as it is below 60%. One of the reason which caused low home win percentage in TSC is that there are more matches broadcasted live on TV or video streaming. Thus, the ability to monitor the live matches for any “monkey-business” is increased. Fascinatingly, only two teams in TSC with 0 loss at home: Persib, with all home matches were broadcasted live; and Perseru, with none of their home matches were broadcasted.

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It is quite likely that TSC will be discontinued in 2017. Like it or not, and with all of its limitations and challenges, TSC is deemed “successful” by the organizer. The ISL is quite probably to return. How would you like for it to be held? Just like its previous effectuations, or like TSC but improved? Share your thoughts!