After months of hype and promotion — as well as the stripping of Autzen Stadium’s turf — a highly touted International Champions Cup match between futbol super clubs Inter Milan and Paris Saint-Germain was played in Eugene on July 24.
When the match was announced in the spring, University of Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens stated that the Oregon athletic department and ICC parent company Relevant Sports hoped to draw a sell-out crowd to Autzen.
They didn’t even get halfway there.
In the 84th minute, just before Serge Aurier scored his second goal of the day to give PSG a 3-1 lead that would hold as the final score, the official attendance flashed across the Duck Vision scoreboard:  24,147 people showed up to watch. The average attendance of an Oregon football home game in 2015 was 57,324.
“The crowd was good,” Inter Milan defender Davide Santon said. “It was a little small during the match. Obviously in Italy there’s a little bit more people in the stadium.”
Fans traveled from locations all over the world to watch a top-caliber brand of soccer that they may never have another chance to see in person. Tickets were reasonably priced — some were listed for as little as $25.00 in the week leading up. But at slow points during the match, the stadium fell grave-quiet and the emptiness of Autzen was obvious.
Victor Ferral, a fan from Boise, Idaho, traveled to Oregon with a group of friends for a “soccer weekend” to watch the Portland Timbers and Los Angeles Galaxy play in Portland on Friday and then the ICC match on Sunday. While he thought the ICC draw was more enjoyable because of the caliber of players, he also felt it lacked a certain atmosphere.
“I think Portland and L.A. was much more intimate,” Ferral said. “It was the same amount of people, but the stadium is much smaller than Autzen and Portland’s fans are attached.”
The ICC match was part of  a 10-team annual tournament in which some of the world’s top club travel around the U.S. and Europe to prepare for their respective domestic leagues while giving fans pre-season glimpse. In the past, tickets have sold remarkably well for some matches. When Manchester United and Real Madrid played in Ann Arbor, Mich. in 2014, 109,000 fans packed “The Big House” on the University of Michigan campus.
For some reason, the match in Eugene didn’t result in the same sort of fanfare.
“[Eugene] would probably never be one of the cities where, off the top of their head, they say ‘let’s go visit Eugene,’ but this gives people an excuse to visit, as well as fans from all over the country,” Charlie Stillitano, chairman of Relevant Sports, said. “There may be a Paris fan from New York coming out to see the game.”
Stillitano said that both PSG and Inter Milan’s affiliations with Nike played a large part in each side being selected to play in Eugene, but the selection also left the match without a true megastar who is recognizable to non-soccer fans. Cristiano Ronaldo wasn’t playing. Lionel Messi wasn’t playing. PSG’s Ángel Di María is arguably the most well-known player for either side, and spent all but nine minutes on the bench.
Neither Relevant Sports nor the University of Oregon athletic department have announced if Autzen will host another match next summer. But if attendance is any indicator, Eugene’s soccer community isn’t interested in meeting the lofty attendance expectations that Mullens and the athletic department hold.
Follow Jarrid on Twitter @jarrid_denney