Let's Talk About Attendances: Is the URC Really so Unpopular?
An investigation into attendances in the URC over the years and a comparison to the English Premiership
The culture of Rugby Union today is one of infighting and one-up-man-ship. The achievements of one team will always be compared to others. At a time when rugby is in need of people to rally round, instead we have individuals who look to expose its every flaw and play down its virtues.
One favourite battleground for those wishing to attack the URC as an entity is its attendances which are, supposedly, lesser than the other major leagues. Let us then do some myth-busting and examine the facts and figures before discussing where these naysayers get their arguments from.
Methodology
Attendance figures for club rugby are extraordinarily hard to find. Different sources will include league and European fixtures, some will include figures for finals and so on. This investigation will only include league figures. Undoubtedly, there will be alternate sets of figures elsewhere on the internet, but here we will use a common source for all data.
We will judge the URC’s attendance figures by comparing them to the attendance figures for the English premiership. There URC figures are taken from here and the Premiership figures are taken from here.
Super Rugby attendances are close to impossible to find so are not considered, while the French Top14 is by far the best attended league of the 4 so is not included in this analysis.
URC Growth
In the 2022/23 season, the URC experienced its highest ever average attendance for matches as it surpassed 10,000 fans per game for the first time. This comes in the same year that they also experienced record TV viewership.
The URC, in its various guises, has seen an increase in attendance in 12 of its 22 seasons of existence. There is a vast amount of context to take into consideration when analysing this data, including the COVID years, the reduction then increase in the number of teams, the regionalisation of Welsh Rugby and the additions of the Italians and then the South Africans all leading significant skews in the data.
The addition of the Cheetahs and Southern Kings in 2017 (the Pro14 era) looks to have had a negative impact on average attendances, perhaps unsurprisingly as the Southern Kings eventually ceased to trade due to lack of funds just a couple of years later. Thankfully, the addition of the current 4 South African franchises appears to have had the opposite effect.
The club with largest draw in the URC is Leinster with an average crowd of 18,000, followed by the Stormers with nearly 17,000. The top 6 most attended teams are all either Irish or South African.
Comparison to the Premiership
An initial glance at the Premiership’s attendance figures suggest that it is the far better attended league. According to these figures, there are two clubs with an average attendance over 20,000 and an overall league average of over 13,000.
If we use a graph to compare the attendances of the two leagues, the Premiership appears to be the clear winner. This data includes the now defunct London Irish.
However, there are some very obvious flaws with this data. Harlequins and Saracens, for instance, have an average attendance that is considerably larger than the capacities of their home stadiums (the Stoop and the StoneX). This is because their averages include ‘Event’ games which were moved to Twickenham or Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last year. These one-offs drew a crowd between 3 and 5 times what would constitute a sell-out of their regular stadium. The games are much more heavily marketed than regular home games and often come with reduced ticket prices or special offers.
The English are not the only ones to hold ‘event’ games that skew their data upwards. Edinburgh hosted their 1872 cup game against Glasgow at Murrayfield, drawing a crowd 3 time greater than any other game. We also have the Welsh Judgement Day games; a double-header at the Principality Stadium that drew over 40,000 fans.
Then there is the question over Leinster’s game at the Aviva against Munster. This is less obviously an ‘event’ game because Leinster played at the Aviva no fewer that 8 times in the 22/23 season, just once fewer that their main home of the RDS. Leinster’s use of the two stadiums last season is detailed in the table below.
It can be seen that only one regular season URC game was held at the Aviva last season and it drew a crowd almost 3 times greater than any other game. Therefore, it is reasonable to say that while Leinster holding games at the RDS is not an ‘event’, holding a league game there is.
While these games show case what the teams can achieve as a one-off, they make the overall averages less reliable as a way to judge teams attendances against each other. For instance, Bristol’s attendance was higher than Saracens’ for 9/10 games of the regular season, by a margin of at least 6,000, but the 55,000 crowd for the Twickenham game pulls Saracens’ average higher than Bristol’s.
If we were to focus on only the peak attendances for each club, including ‘event’ games, the standings would look like this:
These figures lack any reasonable context and give conclusions that are highly misleading, such as the Dragons being a bigger draw than Leicester Tigers. Once the relevant context is reviewed (as given above) it is clear that conclusions on league popularity cannot be draw from this data. Therefore, if we eliminate these outliers from the data and take into account only league games played at the clubs’ regular home grounds, we get the following:
Leicester Tigers are still top by a considerable margin (over 5,000) but Harlequins drop below the top 6 URC teams.
Using this adjusted data, of the top 10 best attended home grounds between the URC and the Premiership, five are URC and five are Premiership. The average attendance in England is 12,109 compared to the URC’s 8,998, some 26% fewer fans. However, the URC has 60% more teams than the Premiership. If we take only the 10 English teams competing this year and compare to the top 10 teams in the URC, the gap in averages drops to just over 550 (a 4.5% difference). With London Irish now gone, the total number of fans attending URC games will be higher than the total number attending the Premiership.
Where Does the Negativity Come From?
Optically, it is understandable why some attendances may look bad, as many URC sides are playing in stadiums that are shared with other teams/sports that draw much larger crowds, giving a sense that the stadium is empty, whereas the actual attendance is reasonably healthy. This is a known issue in Super Rugby also. English clubs mainly play in purpose-built venues, such as Welford Road or the Stoop, which are tailored to the attendance sizes and look far better on TV.
Broadly speaking, online support for the URC is strong in both Ireland and South Africa, whilst the Italian teams have made a very strong start to the 2023/24 season. Rugby as a sport is as popular as it has ever been in those countries, no doubt inspired by their recent international successes.
The impression is that the majority of the pessimism towards URC attendances comes from the Welsh contingent, be that fans or media. So, let’s examine Welsh attendances.
Welsh Woes?
A CityAM journalist recently tweeted a photo of the crowd at Parc Y Scarlets for the derby between the Scarlets and Cardiff with the caption’ Rugby is dying’. In his opinion, the crowd should have been much greater, but was he right?
The attendance for that game was 6,325, which was the lowest attendance for Scarlets against Cardiff since the 2004/05 season. In isolation, this looks like a bad, if not catastrophic situation. However, the are three very important pieces of context to that figure:
The Wales national team had scheduled a friendly in Cardiff that kicked of just a couple of hours before the derby, this drew 50,000 rugby fans. If even 2% of those fans had instead have gone to the derby, it would have been the best attendance in five seasons.
The game was scheduled in November, Round 3 of the season. Whereas, in 14/18 of the previous seasons where fans were able to attend, it had been scheduled either in the last 6 rounds of the season or around Christmas and New Year, when Regional derbies are traditionally played.
The timing was very close to the end of the Rugby World Cup, where rugby fans have been exposed to a very high volume of rugby and some had spent significant sums travelling to see those games in person. Thus, some of the fanbase was somewhat over saturated and fatigued by rugby.
It should also be added that whilst the attendance this season represented a 12% drop on the previous season, that translates to a real figure of just over 800 people. The below graph tracks the attendances for this game in all years since the Regions were created. It is noticeable that the attendances have, so far, not returned to their pre-COVID levels.
Do these trends continue with the rest of the regions? The data surveyed only tracks the season’s league attendances since the 2015/16 season. However, going from this, it can be seen that 2022/23 saw Cardiff reach their highest average attendance, while the Scarlets hit their 2nd highest. Scarlets, Cardiff and Ospreys have all, at some point in their history, moved to larger stadiums to allow for higher attendances.
The Dragons have remained fairly stable around the 5,000 attendance mark. Hence, it is disproven that regional attendances have been declining for several years. The one region that is showing signs for concern is the Ospreys.
Ospreys’ Decline
The Ospreys have been Wales’ most successful Region in terms of league titles with 4. Their move to the Liberty Stadium in 2005 saw a jump of around 3,000 in attendance and they have enjoyed peak average attendances in excess of 9,000 in the past.
Of the grounds of clubs that did not become regional homes, even Ebbw Vale’s Eugene Cross Park could not have accommodated the majority of the Ospreys average attendances until 2017. The high peaks in the below graph are all derby games against either the Scarlets or Cardiff.
However, since 2017 there has been an alarming drop off. In the last 50 league matches, they have seen fewer than 5,000 fans turn up 10 times, compared to just once in the 120 home games preceding that. The start of the 2023/24 season has yet to see them break 5,000 fans in attendance.
Overall, it is true to say that Welsh attendances specifically are weaker than attendances in England.
Why Are Welsh Attendances Lower?
The woes of regional rugby are numerous and have spawned many articles since their inception in 2003. For the sake of this analysis, we will consider only the reasons for URC attendances being lower than some would expect. Here are 5 large factors:
Lack of buy in: In the early days of the URC (or the Celtic League as it was then known) the Welsh did not fully commit to the league, playing simultaneously in the Welsh-Scottish League. Later, they formed the Anglo-Welsh cup with the premierships sides, moving URC fixtures to mid-week to allow these games to be played.
Resistance: From the fans, to the Administrators, to loud voices in the media, some in Wales have always rejected regional rugby and thus the URC along with them. Despite multiple generations of fans having only ever experienced regional rugby, the voices detracting from it as a concept remain prevalent.
Disillusionment with Rugby: The seemingly constant scandals and infighting within the game in Wales has led to some fans feeling disconnected with the sport. The decline of the national side also contributes to this.
Lack of recent success: Drastic funding cuts will likely see all 4 regions struggle to pick up wins this season. The attendance data shows that fans are far more willing to turn up when the team is winning, as evidenced by the Scarlets’ peak attendance being when they were winning leagues and going deep into Europe.
Scarcity of Home Games: Scheduling club rugby has become increasingly challenging in recent years. In the current URC and European formats, clubs are guaranteed just 11 home fixtures per season. These are often grouped closely together, meaning clubs can go months between home games. Hence, fans fall out of the habit of attending every other week.
One consideration that is often referred to when discussing attendances is population. There are over 50 million more people in England than in Wales, so of course attendances are lower. However, when examining on a club by club basis, this argument starts to fall apart.
Cardiff has a population larger than the whole of Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire combined, yet their average attendance is almost level with the Scarlets. Meanwhile, the population of Leicester is actually smaller than Cardiff’s, yet their attendance is almost 3 times higher. Then, there is Newcastle, whose population is some 823,000, yet they have comfortably the smallest attendance in the Premiership. Things get even worse when we start to consider London-based teams, while Leinster has a population almost as high as the whole of Wales put together.
Conclusion
We have therefore shown that whilst URC attendances are lower that their Premiership counterparts, the gap is not as large as some people suggest and the difference between the top clubs, with the exception of Leicester Tigers, is negligible. The URC has also shown that it’s popularity is growing.
Any judgement on the demise of the Welsh regions’ attendances should be held until the end of the 2023/24 season. The early signs are not promising, but there is still a chance for recovery.
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