Excuses or Genuine Reasons? Why Karachi Fails to fill up the Stadium in almost every PSL Season
Excuses or Genuine Reasons? Why Karachi Fails to fill up the Stadium in almost every PSL Season: The 9th edition of the HBL Pakistan Super League started brilliantly in Multan and Lahore where we witnessed full houses in almost every game. There were a few occasions when the stadiums in Multan and Lahore were not houseful, but yet it wasn’t that empty as compared to the situation in Karachi.
The Karachi Kings played their first home fixture against Islamabad United on 28th February 2024. Karachi suffered a big defeat by 7 wickets. However, Karachi’s underperformance wasn’t the only disappointing thing of this match. The poor attendance at the National Bank Stadium (formerly known as National Stadium Karachi) was something very disappointing and cricket fans and pundits across the country criticized the people of Karachi for not filling the stadium. Critics also bashed PCB for hosting PSL matches in Karachi because Karachi has always been under the radar of critics for not filling the stadiums.
Many Karachi-based journalists from renowned media outlets highlighted major problems that the fans faced while watching the match. This includes poor viewing experience, fans not being allowed to take in home-cooked food/snacks in the stadium, parking lot being far away from the stadium, and long queues for ticket checking. Some journalists also claimed that the ticket is being checked three times before entering the stadium. Another reason was that the LCD/LED screen in the National Bank Stadium is not in the best condition and people cannot view the scores and replays during the match. One more source highlighted that people do not have enough reception/signals of mobile phones when they are in the stadium.
While the reasons are quite valid and important, before writing this article, the author decided to contact a few sources in Lahore and Rawalpindi. Upon asking the general fans of Lahore and Rawalpindi, it was confirmed that the situation is nearly the same in those two stadiums as well. Their tickets are also checked multiple times, and they also face the similar issue of the parking lot being far away from certain stands of the stadium. They also face similar problems of long queues, poor signals/reception of mobile phone signals and they are not also not permitted to take home cooked food items in the stadium. Another source reported that people are also not allowed to take chargers/power banks in the stadium.
The only valid excuse is that the screens in Rawalpindi and Lahore are better as compared to the ones in Karachi. The rest of the conditions regarding viewer experience and other problems are almost the same in every city. Yet, the people of Lahore and Multan have filled the stadiums nicely and it is also expected that we will be seeing a good crowd in the Rawalpindi leg of the event as well, which begins from 2nd March 2024, Saturday.
While Karachi has been disappointing so far in terms of crowd attendance, the highlighted excuses aren’t exactly wrong. The Pakistan Cricket Board earns a lot of revenue from these matches and overall as well. Spending that money to reconstruct the chairs, and screens and improve the viewership experience of general stands is something that should be done soon. Using these problems as an excuse to not fill the stadium in Karachi is wrong because with similar problems we witness full houses in other cities of Pakistan. However, it is the right of every spectator to have a good viewership experience, especially in the biggest T20 tournament of the country. It is quite sad to see the stadiums of Pakistan in this condition despite the completion of 8 PSL seasons, while the 9th one is underway currently.
