After years of slow growth, Super League crowds are finally booming

It’s taken seven years, but Super League may be about to tick off a key performance indicator. In 2015, the Rugby Football League said they wanted to sell out 10 games a season. Until this year, you could count sold-out fixtures on one hand. But as the Easter Rivals Round arrives, the RFL are rushing towards their target.

Castleford filled their 10,500 spaces for their season-opener against Salford, and broke 10,000 again against Hull FC. Hull KR sold out last week’s game with Warrington and Craven Park will again be full for the derby on Good Friday, when a capacity 17,980 is also expected to see the top two – Saints and Wigan – meet in St Helens.

While fans are not jammed in everywhere, most grounds are busier. When Super League started in 1996, three clubs averaged five-figure gates. That’s now five, even after the demise of Bradford Bulls.

Building new stadiums and revamping old grounds has been key. Comparing average crowds in the first five seasons of Super League and the five campaigns before the pandemic (2015 to 2019), Wigan’s gates rose from around 10,000 to 12,600 despite their despised move from Central Park to Robin Park; St Helens grew from under 9,000 at Knowsley Road to over 11,000 at Langtree Park and up to 13,200 so far this season; and Leeds’ wildly fluctuating attendances at a redeveloped Headingley are still up by more than 2,000 a game.

Two clubs have pretty much doubled their crowds: Hull and Warrington. They have four things in common: 21st-century facilities, large populations, ambitious owners and no Super League titles. Hull averaged around 6,000 at the Boulevard in their first five seasons in Super League; they are up to 11,500 in their last five in West Park. Likewise Warrington, who have