By Paul Nicholson
August 25 – Three weeks into the Premier League season and the attendance figures have dipped below 95% average capacity for the first time, to 94.82%. Average capacity in week 1 was 97.36%, dropping to 95.82% last week.
More tickets were available in Week 3 than the other weeks with the Premier League’s two largest stadia – Arsenal’s Emirates and Man Utd’s Old Trafford – both reporting over 99% capacity.
Four teams reported over 99% capacity with West Ham for the second week running filling just about everything available with just 39 seats unfilled. The Hammers hosted the Premier League’s fairy tale newcomers Bournemouth who have the league’s smallest ground with just 11,500 capacity.
This is the last season West Ham will play at the Boleyn Ground before they move to the reconfigures 54,000-seat Olympic Stadium in London’s Stratford.
Seven out of the 10 home teams this weekend reported over 95% capacity.
Overall there were 19,051 unfilled seats with 9,802 of them at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light. The north east club has a stadium capacity of 49,000, the fifth highest in the Premier League, but has seen attendance fall to 80% of capacity from 84% last week.
West Brom and Everton had surprisingly lower percentages of stadium fill than would have been expected for the visits of Chelsea and Manchester City. West Brom had 3,500 unfilled seats while Everton had 1,600 seats unfilled for the visit of the in-form Premier league table-toppers. Some of the unused capacity might have been taken up by seat kills for media and security requirements.
If you take Sunderland, West Brom and Everton out of the above numbers, there were just 3,957 unfilled seats out of a total of 278,571 seats available.
Round 3 attendances
Round 2 attendances
Round 1 attendances
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