Rise of Empires: Spain.

Chapter 213 The Development of Bullfighting

In fact, bullfighting events organized by the royal family and held simultaneously across Spain began in March 1877.

It is called an event, but in fact it is a nationwide competition among Spanish bullfighters. This competition will select the best bullfighter in Spain, who will be awarded the title of Spanish Royal Bullfighter by Carlo himself.

Because the selection is carried out all over Spain, the first four months of the bullfighting competition are held in various regions. The purpose is to conduct the first round of screening in each region and select the more outstanding bullfighters to go to Madrid for the second round and final.

It is April now, which is the hot season for bullfighting in Spain.

In Carlo's plan, bullfighting is a national activity that concerns the combat effectiveness of the Spanish army. It can not only provide the Spanish people with an entertainment activity to vent their emotions, but also cultivate the aggressive and fearless spirit among the Spanish nation.

This year is the first year of the national bullfighting competition, and Carlo is quite concerned about it.

In mid-April 1877, Carlo took a group of Spanish officials to watch the bullfighting competition in the Madrid region with great fanfare, and praised the bullfighters who performed better in the competition.

According to the rules of bullfighting, from March to July each year, each region conducts preliminary screening and decides the final ten to go to Madrid to participate in the second round of competition.

The main reason for this regulation is to make bullfighting a national event. If the competition is only held around Madrid, it will be difficult to spread the influence of bullfighting to the whole of Spain.

Although Madrid is the largest city in Spain, its geographical location is not as good as Barcelona in other aspects except that it is located in the center of Spain.

Barcelona is a port city in Spain, and the surrounding area is mostly plains and hills, which has little impact on the city's development.

Madrid is surrounded by mountains on all sides, which not only affects the development of the city, but also means that there are no large cities within dozens of kilometers around Spain.

To the west of Madrid is the vast Central Mountain Range, to the east is Cuenca Mountain, to the north is the endless Meseta Plateau, and to the south is the Toledo Mountains.

It is in this area between these mountains that Madrid, the largest city in Spain, was born. But it is precisely because Madrid is located between many mountains that its development has been restricted.

There are many mountains and plateaus, which is why Spain lags behind other European powers in national development.

Although Spain has an extremely vast territory, the vast Meseta Plateau located in the central and northern regions of Spain has turned large tracts of Spanish land into mountains and deserts that are unsuitable for development.

Spain is also the only country among many European countries that has mountains. The Bennas Desert is located between Mount Morena and Mount Penivetico. The two mountains in the north and south block the humid climate from the ocean. Coupled with the drought and little rain, a desert area has been formed here.

The Benas Desert is a unique natural landscape in Spain and even in the whole of Europe. Because its geographical environment is similar to that of the southwestern United States, it has attracted many Hollywood crews to come here for filming in later generations.

The famous movies "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "A Fistful of Dollars" were both filmed in Spain. Even more than 40% of the movies depicting the American West were filmed in the Benas Desert.

From this aspect, it can be seen that having this desert is not a bad thing for Spain. The area of ​​the Bennas Desert is only 280 square kilometers, which is only the size of a few towns. On the contrary, it can make Spain's geographical environment richer and attract tourists from Europe.

Carlo obviously underestimated the appeal of bullfighting in Spain. This national bullfighting competition organized by Carlo can be said to have attracted the attention of most Spaniards.

The Madrid region will naturally select the top ten best bullfighters to participate in the competition before the second round. Whether it is a bullfight held in Plaza Lerta or in other bullrings, it can attract a large number of Spaniards' attention and presence.

This also means that every bullfight is almost always sold out, and it also drives commercial development near the bullring.

Take the Plaza de Lerta, the largest bullring in Spain, for example. Plaza de Lerta can accommodate more than 3500 spectators at most, and bullfights are held almost every day in recent times.

The ticket revenue from the daily bullfighting matches alone has made Plaza Lerta huge profits.

Part of this will be converted into taxes, allowing the Madrid city government to earn more income.

Not to mention that the purchase of food and drinks and other consumption by these tourists around the square can drive economic development.

Although most tourists don't spend much, the circulation of money has a greater impact on the economy than just its apparent monetary value.

More importantly, this kind of economic circulation is carried out every day. Just because of this bullfighting event, Spain's economic development speed will be much faster than the same period last year.

This is the premise that there is no large bullfighting arena in Spain. When the large bullfighting arena in Spain is completed, a bullfighting event will have nearly 10,000 spectators.

The impact of nearly 10,000 spectators on the economy will be several times higher than it is now. With the holding of bullfighting competitions every year, Madrid's economic development will be put on the fast track and take off in a short period of time.

After watching two bullfights, Carlo never went to Plaza Lerta again.

It’s not that Carlo is not interested in bullfighting, but every time Carlo comes, it affects the schedule of ordinary audiences to watch bullfighting.

In order to ensure Carlo's safety, when Carlo was watching the bullfight, the guards would impose martial law on the Plaza de Lerta and only allow a small number of spectators who had been searched and checked to enter.

The public may not be dissatisfied once or twice, but if it happens too often, they will definitely have other ideas.

This is all because when the Lerta Square was designed, it was not taken into account that members of the royal family would come to watch in person.

In theory, when such a large bullring is built, several box-like venues will be specially constructed and separated from the general audience seats.

This not only ensures the privacy and safety of the box, but also does not affect ordinary spectators from watching the bullfighting game.

These boxes are for distinguished guests. Ordinary audiences can also buy box tickets, but the price is usually expensive and requires certain qualifications, so not everyone can buy them.

Carlo had already considered this.

The large bullring built by the royal family on the outskirts of Madrid will accommodate nearly 20 spectators, including ten large and small boxes. The largest of these boxes can accommodate more than 5 spectators, and the smallest can accommodate more than spectators, and they have their own exclusive passages, so there is no need to use the passages for ordinary spectators.

This is also the place that Carlo specially designed for himself, his family and the nobles to watch bullfighting. Of course, capitalists can also buy tickets to watch in the box, but the ticket price will be more expensive, which is also where the bullring earns income.

Because this large bullring was funded and built by the royal family, the ownership naturally belongs to the royal family.

It is certainly impossible for Carlo to make much profit from the people, and the only way to make money is from the boxes and some services provided by the bullring.

After all, it is a large bullring that can accommodate nearly 10,000 people. There are also places selling food and drinks inside the bullring, as well as large toilets distributed in different places in the bullring.

Although Carlo had never thought about making a quick return on his investment after building the bullring, he certainly wouldn't mind if he could make money from capitalists and nobles.

Carlo never appeared in public again after watching two bullfights, but this did not dampen the Spanish people's enthusiasm for watching bullfights.

After several months of national bullfighting competitions, bullfighting has created an unstoppable popularity in Spain. Bullfighters with outstanding performances in each region have become hot stars in their respective regions, arousing cheers and admiration from the people.

It is worth mentioning that as Carlo hosted national bullfighting competitions, bullfighting also became a craze among the aristocratic class.

Most of the nobles were only keen on watching bullfighting competitions, but a small number of nobles chose to join directly and become a brave and fearless bullfighter.

Although bullfighting is full of dangers, if you are not careful you may lose your life at the hands of a wild bull.

This not only fails to stop the Spaniards' love for bullfighting, but also makes more people curious and concerned about this national competition.

According to the royal family's statistics on bullfighting competitions in various regions, in the first two months of the official bullfighting events, the total number of tickets sold in various regions exceeded 150 million.

Although this is only the number of tickets sold and does not mean that there were actually 150 million people watching the bullfight, it does prove one thing, that is, the Spanish people's attention to bullfighting has reached an extremely high level.

Judging from the size of the bullrings in each region, except for Andalucia and Madrid, which have relatively large bullrings, other regions only have medium-sized bullrings with seats for one or two thousand people.

Considering that there are not necessarily bullfighting matches every day, selling more than 150 million tickets in less than two months is already a very exaggerated figure.

The price of bullfighting tickets varies depending on the seat.

Taking the ticket sales at Plaza Lerta in Madrid as an example, the tickets at the farthest end are the cheapest, and the average ticket price does not exceed 10 centavos, or 0.1 pesetas.

Tickets for the best viewing areas are several times more expensive than those for the farthest seats, with the most expensive ones even costing as high as 1.25 pesetas.

Although the current per capita income in Spain has increased to more than 131 pesetas, a ticket price of 1.25 pesetas is still the income of an ordinary person for three days of work. The vast majority of civilians will not waste so much money on a bullfight.

Most of the people who actually buy tickets for better viewing positions are middle class people, capitalists, and aristocrats.

In fact, the price of 1.25 pesetas itself is not expensive, and there is no need for ordinary middle-class people to feel bad about it, not to mention capitalists and aristocrats with even larger assets.

The price of bullfighting tickets is constantly changing. There are many factors that affect the price of tickets, the most important of which are the fame of the bullfighters participating in the bullfight and the ferocity of the bulls prepared by the bullring.

The more ferocious the bullfight, the more exciting the bullfight will be. Famous bullfighters can also attract more spectators to watch the game. After all, there is only one way for these bullfighters to attract attention, that is, to use more exciting bullfights to attract the audience's attention.

These two points are factors that determine the excitement of the bullfight, which is why they can influence the price of bullfight tickets.

Although this competition was organized by Carlo, it was actually a collaboration with bullrings in various regions of Spain. The bullring owned by Carlo has not yet been built, and even if it is built, only the second round of the finals will be held in a large bullring.

The purpose of cooperating with the existing bullrings in these regions is to quickly organize bullfighting competitions and help bullfighting activities develop better in various regions of Spain.

If the royal family were the only one to push forward, it would take a longer time and require more financial investment. Secondly, without the participation of other capital, it would not be easy to develop rapidly.

Although doing so will give up part of the profits to the bullrings in various regions, for Carlo there is actually no loss.

Part of the money earned by these bullfighting arenas will be turned into taxes and handed over to the government to increase government revenue.

The money they earn will also be used to promote bullfighting and expand the bullring, etc., to help carry out a new round of promotion for bullfighting in Spain.

Coupled with the public opinion power of the newspaper owned by Carlo, this is also the reason why bullfighting quickly became popular among most Spaniards and became a huge success.

Now that the bullfighting competition has achieved initial success, the next thing to do is simple, which is to promote the ongoing bullfighting competition more vigorously, and at the same time expand the bullfighting arenas in various regions as much as possible to ensure that they can accommodate more spectators.

The more spectators who come to watch bullfights, the more income the bullring and the royal family will receive.

Currently, the capacity of bullfighting arenas in various regions is around 1000 to 2000 people, which is too small to cope with the enthusiasm of the public to watch bullfighting competitions.

Even in Madrid, where the bullring can accommodate 3500 people, there are still situations where people cannot buy tickets.

In addition to the low ticket prices for bullfighting matches, the bullrings in each region are simply unable to accommodate more spectators, resulting in most Spaniards only being able to watch the corresponding bullfighting information on the news and being unable to witness it with their own eyes.

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(End of this chapter)