Premiership Gates Down - 14/05/2005

Aggregate crowds for the Premiership this season are set to fall below the 13m level for the first time since 2000-01. Moreover, the typical television audience for a live Premiership match broadcast on the main Sky channels was 1.23m per game, 9 per cent down on last season's average. The decline in attendance is partly explained by a fall in Premiership ground capacity with the departure of Leeds and Leicester. Expressed as a proportion of capacity, crowds are running at 94.1 per cent of the maximum, only slightly down from 94.8 per cent last season. The decline in average television viewing is in part due to an increase from 106 to 138 in the number of live matches screened. The biggest games remain as attractive as ever with both games between Arsenal and Manchester United attracting a television audience of more than 3 million. At the other end of the spectrum the match between Bolton Wanderers and Norwich City attracted only 150,000. Three other matches (Newcastle versus Norwich, Portsmouth versus Palace and Bolton versus Birmingham) attracted fewer than 500,000 viewers. The decline in average viewers was sharper for Sky's Prem Plus pay-per-view service. Average audiences were down more than 15 per cent compared with last season, but most of the attractive matches were included in the 106 game package available before the start of the season. The return to the Premiership of Sunderland with its 48,300 capacity Stadium of Light may help to boost attendances next season, although the positive effect of their arrival may be offset by Wigan. They attracted an average of fewer than 12,000 spectators to their home games, meaning that they were utilising less than half of their stadium capacity. A more fundamental question is whether the increasing gap between the top three and the rest (exemplified by Arsenal's 7-0 defeat of Everton) will reduce interest in the Premiership as it comes to be seen as less and less competitive.