In the current 2025/26 season Baltika, back in the Premier League, are pleasing not only with their play and their league position but with how many people come to watch. According to public statistics, the club's average attendance is currently around 17,000 per match. That puts Baltika in the RPL's top four, behind only Zenit, Krasnodar and Spartak. For comparison, last season's average in the First League was noticeably lower, about 14,200, which is also a lot!
It is all the more impressive given the scale of the arena itself. Rostec Arena in Kaliningrad holds about 35,000, so at the current average the stadium is running at roughly half capacity, which for such a big bowl already looks respectable. For the big matches the numbers climb higher still.
These are already very good numbers. But the main question isn't whether they are good now. It's whether a full stadium in Kaliningrad can stop being an event and become a habit.
Let me say straight away: this is not a criticism of the club. On the contrary, Baltika already has a strong base, and that is precisely why the next step looks perfectly achievable even without some astronomical increase in budget. Let's peek at what they do in Europe and adapt it to our Kaliningrad flavour.
1. A newcomer's guide: "my first time at Baltika"
One of the simplest and yet most underrated tools is a separate route for people going to the stadium for the first time.
West Ham have a full First Time Fan Guide: it explains in detail how to get there, when to arrive, what to bring, what to expect inside the stadium and how to get through your first match comfortably. And it isn't a formal notice in the style of "entrance via sector B", it's a genuinely friendly navigator for the newcomer. It runs to 24 pages as a PDF
Baltika has a ticketing page, there are activities, there is transport information, but there is no publicly visible standalone product called "First time at Baltika": a step-by-step route for someone who doesn't know where to go, when to arrive, where best to sit with a child, what to do before the match and how to get home calmly afterwards.
And many people don't need another pre-match competition. They need the club to literally say: "Here's how to get through your first home match without stress".
This matters especially for new audiences: families, tourists, people from around the region, people who love football but aren't used to going to the stadium regularly. Sometimes a club loses not to the television and not to bad weather, but simply to someone else's confusion.
What could be done: a separate "First time at Baltika" page, short videos on "how to get there / where to sit / what to do before the game", a "Going for the first time?" button when buying a ticket. It's a fairly cheap step, but in terms of effect it could be one of the most useful.
2. A cheap way into the habit through children and newcomers
Here it's important to be honest from the start: Baltika already has strong elements of a family offering. That's exactly why the club doesn't need to "invent a family audience"; it needs to bundle it more tightly into a clear product.
Brentford's fan engagement plan specifically points out that their initiative to make away trips cheaper for kids produced a 35% rise in junior attendance, and more than a hundred young fans travelled for the first time. The principle itself is what matters: the club isn't just doing something cute "for families", it is removing the barrier of the first experience.
For Baltika the obvious idea here is not "introduce children's discounts", because they already exist, but a different one: package the existing advantages into a dedicated mechanic for a first family trip.
For example:
- "Your first family match at Baltika";
- a "parent + child" package with a clear script, for instance a "First time with Dad" promotion: a special package where the ticket price includes, say, a child's flag or a "My first match" certificate
- a short landing page collecting all the family perks in one place;
- a match where the club specifically counts and welcomes those who have come for the first time.
So it's not only the price that matters, but the feeling of simplicity: a trip to Baltika is a clear and convenient plan for the whole family.
3. Transport as part of the ticket, not just a map of how to get there
For Kaliningrad this is an especially sensitive topic. Rostec Arena is a big stadium on an island, and logistics here affect the decision to come almost as much as the opponent or the club's league position. Baltika has a "How to get there" page, but there is no sign of a stronger idea: integrating the ticket with transport, special shuttles, free travel on match day or dedicated routes from around the region.
At some clubs this is already part of the product. At VfB Stuttgart a home match ticket entitles you to use public transport within a set time window. It's a very strong move, because what it removes isn't an emotion but friction. A person spends less time thinking about how to get there and how to get out after the game.
For Baltika the topic is even more promising, because the club works not only for Kaliningrad but for the whole region. All the more so now, with the format where each home match symbolically represents one of the region's towns. But then a logical question arises: how do people get back comfortably to Sovetsk, Chernyakhovsk, Gusev or Gvardeysk if the match ends late in the evening?
Which begs a strong idea:
"The town goes to Baltika"
- buses from the region and back for home matches;
- quotas and special packages for specific towns;
- a mini-table of attendance by district or town;
- a friendly competition between the towns: who supports the club best.
This is no longer just logistics. It turns a trip to the match into a regional ritual.
4. Ticket returns and resale, so seats don't go to waste
Another thing that rarely sounds impressive but helps a great deal in practice is flexibility with tickets.
The same VfB Stuttgart has an official ticket exchange: if someone can't come, the seat doesn't stay empty, the ticket gets a second chance to be sold. It seems like a small detail, but it's from such small things that the feeling grows that the club is playing for the fan, not just selling them a seat in the stands.
In Russian practice such solutions are almost nowhere to be seen, and at Baltika too there is no visible logic for fighting last-minute empty seats. And yet for a fan this is a very understandable human story: you fall ill, something urgent comes up, the child has a temperature, plans fall through. At a moment like that, a quick exchange of the ticket for the next match, or the easiest possible refund, isn't just a service but a source of loyalty.
At a big arena in particular this matters not only for people's convenience but for actual attendance: fewer wasted seats means a denser picture and a livelier stadium.
5. Regular dialogue with fans as part of the product
In English football the very logic of how a club works with its fans long ago moved beyond "put up a poster, sell the tickets". The Premier League runs a Fan Engagement Standard, and Brentford, for instance, publish a separate fan engagement plan and report on exactly what the club is doing to improve the fan experience.
At Baltika you can publicly see activities, a family sector, a loyalty programme, ticket discounts. But there is one thing not visible on the surface: constant, open communication about what exactly the club is changing at fans' request.
And yet sometimes one short feature called "You asked, we did it" works better than a concert before the match.
Why? Because it brings people back not through emotion but through trust. The fan sees that the club isn't just selling an experience but listening and improving the environment around them: entry, signage, food, kids' zones, security checks, logistics, merchandise, communication after the game.
It could be a very simple, living feature:
- before each home match, 1-2 points on what has changed;
- after each match, a short survey;
once a month, a public summary: what people asked for most often
6. A tourist package: something most clubs simply don't have
Most Russian clubs don't have this advantage. Baltika does.
Kaliningrad is a tourist city. That means a match here can be sold not just as a ticket but as part of a weekend: football + the city + the sea + a souvenir + a good route before and after the game. The club already has a loyalty programme and a partner base, so the infrastructure for such a bundle exists in some form.
It's very easy to picture. A hypothetical fan from Moscow, Kazan or Yekaterinburg goes to the Baltika website and sees not just a "Buy ticket" button, but a ready-made idea for the weekend:
- a match ticket;
- flights, especially since our partner is the airline Red Wings (though flying to Kaliningrad isn't straightforward from every city)
- a hotel recommendation;
- a mini-guide to "what to see before the game";
- partner cafes and bars after the match;
- a souvenir pack or a club scarf.
Honestly, I'd like to see packages like that from Russian clubs myself =)
7. Count and announce how many newcomers came for the first time
The line "Today 2,400 people came to Baltika for the first time" sounds modern, not awkward, and very clear. It fits well with the mechanics of the family product, the first trip and audience growth. This isn't decorative statistics any more but a living KPI: the club is expanding its fan base. That is the whole logic of best practice: not just to sell a match, but to widen the circle of people for whom going to the stadium becomes a habit.
Here you can do some really simple things:
- an "I'm going for the first time" tag when buying a ticket;
- a welcome for newcomers on the big screen;
- a separate figure on social media after the match;
- a small bonus for those who came for the first time.
It seems like a trifle, but it really helps a club start thinking not only about how many seats were sold, but about how many new people the club brought into the stands.
To sum up: Baltika is already doing great work. But if we add a little "humanity" to the logistics and the communication, the 35,000-seater on Oktyabrsky Island is going to start feeling cramped.
See you in the stands!
