Record opening round attendance
AFL Chief Executive Officer Andrew Demetriou said he wanted to thank AFL supporters across all parts of the country for their enthusiasm towards the return of the AFL competition, and to pay tribute to the ongoing work of the AFL clubs and players across the competition in building their relationships with supporters.
“The attendance of 365,507 for Opening Round has provided a compelling start to the new season and the number of upsets and high-quality matches across the round augurs well for a great race to the 2013 flag across the rest of the season,” Mr Demetriou said.
“Coupled with the very strong attendance figures at the matches themselves, we have also seen some outstanding results with television viewer numbers around the Adelaide Crows v Essendon and Carlton v Richmond games in particular, with both matches drawing more than 1.2 million combined viewers across free to air and subscription television.
“At this early stage of the 2013 year, AFL club membership across the competition is already well on track to eclipse last year’s all-time record tally of 707,621, and the clubs and the players deserve great credit for the peerless match-day experience at every AFL game,” he said.
The inclusion of the GWS Giants and the Gold Coast Suns across the 2011-2012 seasons allows the AFL to now play nine matches per round, albeit the vast majority of games involving the Suns and Giants are played at smaller boutique stadiums with less capacity than the recent average AFL match attendance of 36,908 (2010 season of 176 games with 16 teams), 34,893 (2011 season of 187 games with 17 teams) and 31,509 (2012 season of 198 games with 18 teams).
The best attendances for a single round in the history of the game:
367,974 – Round 22, 1998
367,792 – Round One, 2012
365,507 – Round One, 2013
364,544 – Round One, 2007
361,003 – Round 17, 2009
357,948 – Round 21, 2007
350,885 – Round Three, 2008
349,489 – Round One, 2009
347,824 – Round Six, 2010
346,177 – Round Three, 2005
