Ticket prices reaching £150, expensive stadium food and difficult access have triggered criticism from coaches, broadcasters and fans, raising uncomfortable questions about how major athletics events are being marketed to the public.
The European Athletics Championships in Birmingham are facing growing criticism over ticket prices and visibly empty seats, threatening to overshadow a competition featuring some of the continent’s biggest track-and-field stars.
The debate intensified after large sections of Alexander Stadium remained unoccupied during the opening sessions of the championships, despite a programme featuring Olympic champions and leading European athletes. Organisers reported an opening-night attendance of 13,623, but the expanded venue, with capacity of roughly 23,000, appeared significantly short of full.
Among those expressing concern were former world champion and BBC commentator Steve Cram and Jenny Meadows, the coach of Olympic 800m champion Keely Hodgkinson. Their criticism has focused particularly on whether pricing has placed one of European athletics’ flagship competitions beyond the reach of ordinary families and casual spectators.
Premium tickets have emerged as the central source of controversy. Category A seats for some evening sessions have been priced at £150, while seats on the home straight were available for £110 during Tuesday evening’s competition. Some of the premium sections also lacked reduced junior pricing, increasing the cost substantially for families wanting some of the best views in the stadium.
The criticism has not been limited to tickets.
Spectators have also highlighted unusually expensive food and drink inside the venue, including a barbecue pork roll priced at as much as £18.50. Parking costs, transport arrangements and lengthy walks from designated parking areas have added to concerns about the overall expense and accessibility of attending the championships.
For athletics, the issue is particularly sensitive because major championships depend heavily on atmosphere. Unlike football or other sports with large weekly audiences and deep season-ticket cultures, track and field relies on major international meetings to capture broader public attention.
A stadium containing thousands of empty seats therefore creates more than an aesthetic problem. It can diminish television presentation, reduce the atmosphere experienced by athletes and reinforce perceptions that elite athletics struggles to translate major-event interest into consistent live audiences.
Organisers have defended their pricing strategy, saying that the event offers a wide range of ticket categories and that approximately half of available tickets cost £30 or less, with some children’s tickets priced significantly lower. They have also said more than 170,000 tickets have been sold across the championships and expect larger crowds as the week progresses toward high-profile finals.
That distinction is important. The controversy is not simply that every ticket is expensive; rather, critics argue that the most desirable seats carry prices that are difficult to reconcile with the need to fill a large athletics stadium.
The problem became particularly visible when television cameras showed substantial areas of empty seating during events featuring some of Europe’s leading athletes. Broadcasters and commentators questioned whether reducing prices might have produced fuller stands and ultimately strengthened both the sporting spectacle and the championship’s public image.
The situation also highlights the increasingly difficult economics of staging major sporting events.
Organisers face substantial costs covering venue operation, security, broadcasting infrastructure, staffing and event production. Host organisations consequently have strong incentives to maximise ticket revenue, particularly after years in which British athletics has faced significant financial pressure.
Yet high prices can become counterproductive when they suppress attendance. A £150 seat produces no revenue if it remains empty, while a less expensive ticket could bring additional spectators into the venue, increase concession sales and generate the kind of crowd atmosphere that enhances the value of the championship itself.
That tension is particularly evident in Birmingham because the championships feature an unusually strong collection of international stars.
Hodgkinson, one of Britain’s highest-profile athletes, comfortably advanced through the women’s 800m heats on Tuesday in 1min 57.28sec, the fastest championship heat of her career. She is attempting to win another major European title in front of a home crowd.
Other leading names competing during the championships include some of the most recognisable figures in global athletics, making the sight of empty seats particularly frustrating for those who believe the sport should be using such athletes to attract a new generation of supporters.
Promotion has also come under scrutiny. Meadows suggested that awareness of the championships around Birmingham had been surprisingly limited, while fans and commentators have questioned whether the event was marketed aggressively enough to the wider public.
Transport represents another complication. Alexander Stadium does not enjoy the same central-city connectivity as some major sporting venues, making attendance more dependent on carefully organised transport and parking.
Late-night finishes can further complicate the proposition for families, particularly when spectators must subsequently navigate public transport or motorway disruptions after leaving the stadium.
These issues matter beyond this week’s competition.
The championships represent the first time Britain has staged the outdoor European Athletics Championships, giving Birmingham an opportunity to demonstrate the country’s capacity to host another major international athletics event. The city already possesses considerable experience following the 2022 Commonwealth Games and previous world and European indoor championships.
More importantly, the controversy arrives as London prepares a bid for the 2029 World Athletics Championships. Britain’s ability to demonstrate that it can attract large, enthusiastic crowds to international athletics is therefore potentially relevant to the country’s ambitions for future events.
Britain has previously shown that athletics can fill major venues. The London 2012 Olympics created extraordinary demand, while subsequent Diamond League meetings and the 2017 World Athletics Championships produced large crowds at the London Stadium.
Birmingham’s experience suggests, however, that those audiences cannot automatically be assumed to appear.
Modern sports consumers face an increasingly competitive entertainment market, and pricing has become particularly important during a period of pressure on household budgets. Athletics must therefore balance premium revenue with accessibility if it wants major championships to function not merely as competitions but as showcases capable of expanding the sport’s audience.
The organisers still have an opportunity to change the narrative. Several of the championships’ most attractive events remain ahead, including Hodgkinson’s pursuit of another European 800m title, and stronger weekend demand could significantly improve attendance figures.
But the early images of empty seats have already generated a broader debate.
At its heart is a simple question confronting not only athletics but many major sporting events: whether maximising the price of individual tickets is worth the risk of weakening the spectacle itself.
For a sport competing constantly for attention, a packed stadium is more than a measure of commercial success. It is part of the product — providing noise, emotion and television images that can transform an athletic performance into a major sporting moment.
Birmingham’s “crazy prices” controversy is therefore about more than the cost of watching a race. It is a warning that, even when world-class athletes are available, the economics of admission can determine whether the stands surrounding them become part of the spectacle or an uncomfortable reminder of the distance between elite sport and its audience.
