August 23 – Despite an action-packed start to the football season, the Premier League’s opening match day saw a slight dip in attendance compared to 2023, with just under 1% lower capacity across the ten hosting stadiums. This small decline, revealed by IWF’s capacity tracker, suggests that fan turnout has slightly decreased.
That said, 2024’s opening match days saw almost 50,000 more fans in stadia than in 2023 thanks to having larger capacity stadiums available. Burnley’s Turf Moor, Sheffield United’s Bramall Lane, Brighton’s Amex Stadium and Bournemouth’s Vitality Stadium were replaced by Leicester’s King Power Stadium, Forest’s City Ground, Ipswich’s Portman Road but crucially West Ham’s 62,500-seater London Stadium that helped boost the overall reported attendance of matchday one to more than 440,000 compared to 2023’s 382,000.
Armed with the most competitive squad since the days of Thierry Henry, Arsenal were the only team to top their 2023 opening day tally based on % capacity, crossing into the 99% margin as the team continues to improve. The crowd watched on as Kai Havertz and Bukayo Saka combined for a strong 2-0 victory over Wolves.
The highest attendance of the week was at Old Trafford, as 73,297 fans watched new signing Joshua Zirkzee leave it late to get Erik Ten Hag’s side the lead in the 87th minute. That being said, Old Trafford was left with more empty seats than this time last year which saw an equally tense 1-0 victory over Wolves.
The best scorers in the percentage capacity section were West Ham as the Hammers continue their reign at the top of the attendance table, yet again scoring over 99.9% capacity in the club’s 1-2 defeat to Aston Villa. This was a common trend last season as the Hammers averaged the strongest %capacity of the 20 teams observed.
On the flip side, the worst %capacity of the round is awarded to Nottingham Forest, who still put up a strong 97.73% score. This marks a big improvement on last season, where the figure dropped as low as 90%.
Contact the writer of this story, Harry Ewing, at moc.l1726208778labto1726208778ofdlr1726208778owedi1726208778sni@g1726208778niwe.1726208778yrrah1726208778