Empty Seats and £18 Pork Rolls: Birmingham's European Championships Faces a Fan Backlash
Thousands of empty seats have greeted athletes at the European Athletics Championships in Birmingham, and fans are pointing the finger squarely at ticket prices and steep food costs inside the stadium.
The championships, running from 10 to 16 August at the redeveloped Alexander Stadium, mark the first time the event has been staged in Birmingham. Yet despite the city's deep athletics roots — the stadium hosted the 2022 Commonwealth Games — crowds have been visibly thin, with swathes of vacant seating visible across sessions. Supporters have described the prices as "extortionate" and the empty stands as "disappointing" Yahoo Sport.
The numbers tell a mixed story. Adult tickets start from £10, junior tickets (for under-16s) from £5, and a family of four can attend for £30. Half of all tickets are priced at £30 or lower. But some seats were listed at £150, and inside the venue, a pork roll cost £18.50 — a combination that has drawn sharp criticism from attendees The Times.
BBC Sport pundits Greg Rutherford, the 2012 Olympic long jump champion, and Jessica Ennis-Hill, the 2012 Olympic heptathlon champion, addressed the problem directly, discussing the empty seats and whether ticket pricing is to blame. Their conversation, available to UK viewers on the BBC Sport website, was linked to a broader report headlined "Criticism of empty seats and ticket prices at the Europeans" BBC Sport.
The contrast with recent major events in Britain is stark. The 2017 World Athletics Championships in London sold more tickets than any previous World Championships, with sessions packed throughout BBC Sport. More recently, European Athletics reported a record 52,284 fans attended the European Athletics Indoor Championships — proof that the appetite for the sport exists when pricing and access align.
European Athletics had pushed hard to fill Alexander Stadium. Tickets for all sessions, including high-demand weekend evening slots, went back on general sale in March, and National Express was brought in as the official transport partner to ease travel logistics.
What makes the backlash sting is that the entry-level pricing looks reasonable on paper. A ten-pound adult ticket is cheaper than a cinema visit in most UK cities. But the visible gaps in the stands suggest that the message — or the perceived value of the top-tier seats — has not landed with enough fans. When a £150 seat sits empty next to a £10 one, the optics are poor, and the £18.50 pork roll becomes a lightning rod for everything else that feels overpriced.
Birmingham 2026 still has days left to run. Whether the crowds grow as the schedule reaches its medal-laden weekend finale may depend less on the athletics on the track and more on whether fans feel the price of being there is worth the journey.
