Average Premiership attendances fall compared to pre-pandemic figures
Regular season attendances in English rugby’s top flight Premiership competition are, on average, 1,000 down on pre-pandemic levels.
In data crunched by Morning Wire – and taking into account a series of factors – attendances in England’s top flight have fallen from 12,636 in the 2018-19 season, the last full season before the pandemic, to 11,632 in the recently concluded campaign.
Excluded from the dataset are “home” matches staged away from a club’s home stadiums – such as those played at the London Stadium, Twickenham and St James’ Park – matches cancelled in the 2021-22 season and a single Newcastle Falcons match shifted due to a storm.
The 2018-19 season saw a gross attendance of 1,604,721 across 127 matches – 1,856,859 across 132 matches including matches away from home grounds – with an average attendance of 12,636 and occupancy of 74.2 per cent.
That season – won by Exeter Chiefs – saw five matches played in larger stadia, including Harlequins’ 82,000 capacity Big Game and Newcastle Falcons’ match at St James’ Park.
Bath top average
Bath’s 14,509 capacity Rec saw a stadium occupancy of 97 per cent during the season prior to pandemic-hit campaigns. Saracens, Gloucester, Exeter, Harlequins and Northampton all topped out at above 85 per cent.
Bristol Bears’ average of 16,347 was above the entire capacity of nine of the other 11 teams in the league, while Leicester averaged 80.4 per cent in tier 25,849 capacity Welford Road.
At the bottom end of the scale were Sale Sharks and Wasps. The Manchester club averaged an occupancy of 54 per cent in their 12,000 AJ Bell stadium, while Wasps fell just shy of 50 per cent in their 32,609 capacity arena.
Between then and now, however, there has been a pandemic and the resulting enforced closures of stadiums around the country.
The 2021-22 season, therefore, is the first complete campaign with a dataset big enough to compare with 2018-19.
This season saw average attendances fall by around 1,000 to 11,632 despite a gross attendance – excluding matches away from home and Newcastle’s delayed match against Gloucester – of 1,733,127 from 149 matches.
Percentage point drop
The campaign saw 13 teams compete, with the addition of London Irish to the league. Their first full season in the 17,500 capacity Brentford Community Stadium had an average that topped 9,000, with a stadium occupancy of 53.5 per cent.
Rounding off the lowest occupancies were Sale and Wasps once more. Though the Sharks’ occupancy fell around five percentage points on 2018-19, Wasps’ plummeted nearly 20 to 30.5 per cent.
Both Exeter and Saracens updated their stadiums mid-way through the season, the Chiefs capping their capacity at 15,000 for now, while the north London club have been operating with a ceiling of 9,660.
Chiefs have averaged 84 per cent occupancy at an average of 12,035 while the Sarries hit an 88 per cent occupancy level, averaging 7,860.
Bath again top the standings – despite finishing last in the league – but are down slightly to 96 per cent occupancy. Harlequins and Northampton are the rising stars since 2018-19, at an increased occupancy rate of 93 and 89 per cent respectively.
Falling Fans
Bristol, too, increased beyond 17,000 per match while Saracens, Gloucester, Newcastle, Sale and Wasps all saw their average fall.
Wasps have, on average, lost over 6,000 fans per match, while Gloucester have lost 1,600. Both Saracens and Newcastle have lost 1,300 – though Saracens have had some development work restricting their capacity – while Sale have lost 600 fans per game.
The pandemic has no doubt had an effect on fan’s return to live sports, but in these numbers – comparable to the last entire season of fans before Covid-19 – a 1,000 decrease in average attendance should be cause for concern.