By Paul Nicholson
March 8 – Premier League attendances hit near record levels for the season last weekend after a round of mid-week fixtures that saw the lowest capacity attendance figures of the season.
Round 29 matches saw Swansea top the table while Newcastle United had their highest gate of the season with just 298 unfilled seats at St James’s Park. Every home team over the weekend reported more than 90% capacities, with eight of the ten over 95%.
Of 354,030 seats available just 9,070 were empty.
Compare this to three days earlier when out of 407,438 seats available, 26,664 were empty for round 28 fixtures.
The key difference for the mid-week fixtures were that Aston Villa and Sunderland were both at home. Both have been struggling with attendances and Villa fans in particular have had a season of discontent. Of the 26,664 seats unfilled, 22,238 were at these two clubs. Villa dipped below 70% capacity for the second time this season – the last time was also a mid-week match.
In contrast West Ham, Norwich, Manchester United, Leicester and Arsenal all recorded over 99% capacity attendances.
The Premier League has now sold over 10 million tickets this season. Average capacity at grounds across the league is 95.55%.
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