Featured image credit: United Rugby Championship
United Rugby Championship, the club competition contested by teams from Ireland, Italy, Scotland, South Africa and Wales, has set a new attendance record for a single gameweek as 123,307 fans turned out in round 11.
The figure surpasses the previous record of 121,177, with sell-out crowds and season-high attendances reported in Belfast, Cardiff, Dublin, Durban, Edinburgh and Parma.
Edinburgh vs Glasgow Warriors at Murrayfield and Cell C Sharks vs Vodacom Bulls at Kings Park Stadium in Durban attracted crowds of 25,000, while games in Dublin, Belfast and Cape Town posted attendances of 17,560, 16,672 and 15,001 respectively.
The URC attracted nearly a quarter of a million fans to its Christmas and New Year fixtures. Of those 16 fixtures, there were three sell-outs and a total of nine season-high attendances.
Martin Anayi, chief executive of the URC, said: “To break the overall attendance record for a single round in the league’s history is yet another boost for the United Rugby Championship. This comes just a week after the Christmas attendance was broken and again shows the superb work our clubs are doing to grow the game.
“To put this achievement in context, the previous record included a 62,000 crowd from Judgement Day in Cardiff in 2018, so to break it without hosting a major double-header is fantastic. There was barely a spare seat in Ireland, the Cardiff Arms Park in Wales was full, Edinburgh did a terrific job to get so many into BT Murrayfield for the 1872 Cup game while Zebre also had their biggest crowd of the season.
“In South Africa, the concept of playing over Christmas and New Year was very new to their market but fans have embraced ‘summer rugby’ with almost 100,000 attending over two weekends. Right now fans will have lots of demands on how they spend their money and to see so many choosing to buy tickets to support their teams in the URC is humbling.”
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