During the opening weekends of the WSL 2022-23 season, most clubs have enjoyed record crowd attendances or better average crowd attendances than ever before. This is arguably due to The Lionesses European Championship triumph this summer.
The opening weekend of the campaign was delayed by a week in respect of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s death. But as soon as the WSL finally returned, record attendances began straight away.
In the opening fixture of the season, Arsenal faced Brighton and they recorded their biggest attendance at Meadow Park since 2020. 3,238 fans were in attendance to see The Gunners claim a 4-0 victory with England star Beth Mead scoring twice.
Manchester United also recorded their biggest attendance of 5,315 at Leigh Sports Village. This smashed their previous record of 3,797 which was set back in October 2021. The fans saw the Red Devils win 4-0 over Reading.
Liverpool beat current champions Chelsea in front of a record crowd of 3,006 at Prenton Park and Aston Villa recorded an attendance of 6,573 as they beat Manchester City 4-3 at Villa Park.
Manchester United Women’s fan and host/contributor on the podcast All for United Conner Roberts said: “Seeing LSV almost packed out for the game against Reading at the weekend was a brilliant sight and you could hear the roar of the crowd just that bit louder when the goals went in.
“I just hope the people who have bought tickets not only for Man United, but all teams follow through with it and turn up when it gets to match day – because of the cheaper ticket prices more people are likely to have a change of mind when the game comes around.”
The increase in attendances at Women’s games is predominantly due to the success of The Lionesses in The Euros this summer. From selling out all allocated tickets at Old Trafford in their opening group game and of course selling out Wembley for the final, England Women have definitely had an influence and grown the women’s game in England more than ever before.
Roberts added: “There’s no doubt in my mind the influence on attendances would have been completely different if England hadn’t gone far in this summer’s euros. The response was almost instant to the Lionesses win with lots of WSL clubs recording record sales of tickets within a few weeks of the win.
“One of the big selling points I think was the stars of the tournament mostly all play in this country so with the euros being won in England, by England it can be marketed as ‘come and see your Lionesses heroes'”.
During the second weekend of the WSL season, two of the games were held at the men’s professional grounds. Arsenal hosted Tottenham in the North London derby at The Emirates while Liverpool hosted Everton in the Merseyside derby at Anfield.
The North London derby saw the old attendance record for a WSL game completely smashed, after 47,367 fans watched The Gunners batter Spurs 4-0 to keep London red.
The previous record which stood at 38,262 was set at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in November 2019 again in the North London derby, just months after England had reached the World Cup semi-finals (2019).
Liverpool may not have had 47,000+ fans in attendance at Anfield, but they still recorded an attendance of 27,574, which smashed the attendance of around 23,500 from the same fixture back in the 2019/20 season. Unfortunately Everton came out on top with a 3-0 victory, but nevertheless the fans still had a decent game of football to enjoy.
So, it’s clear to see when the women’s’ teams play at the professional men’s grounds fans are more likely to attend in big numbers, this is due to tickets being cheaper and the grounds being closer to home a lot of the time.
FA Women’s football director Kelly Simmons said “she’s working really hard to increase the number of fixtures being held in mens stadiums.”
Roberts said: “Some smaller stadiums are easier to get to so it’s more likely these grounds can be filled. But for example with Man United – we play most of our games at Leigh Sports Village – which unless you drive is a nightmare to get to. But we’re lucky now at Manchester United that our supporters club has a shuttle bus that runs from Old Trafford to Leigh Sports Village on match days which does make it a lot easier for fans to attend our home games – but more clubs need to be doing this or something similar.
“I do think that more games should be held in the bigger grounds but they need to be marketed in the right way to make sure a good crowd turn up otherwise the benefits just aren’t there. 3,000 fans in a 12,000 capacity stadium looks much better than 3,000 in a 30,000 capacity stadium.”
Prior to England’s success at The Euros this summer, there was the biggest attendance ever in Women’s football history. It came in the UEFA Women’s Champions League, when Barcelona beat Wolfsburg 5-1 at the Camp Nou in April. 91,648 fans attended.
But other than The Euros final and England’s opening game at Old Trafford, the attendances for a women’s game in England have never come close to that of 91,000 even in big derby games. Why is this? What more can be done to help grow the women’s game even further?
Roberts has two ideas: “The first thing to help attendances improve would be for clubs to make it easier for fans to attend games, they could do this by allowing clubs to have an allocated away end for clubs who request it. It’s still baffling to me as in order to buy United tickets for an away game I have to sign up to every other WSL club’s website and buy tickets through their site.
“The second thing they can do to help attendances is to market the women’s team alongside the men’s – on too many occasions last season, clubs would advertise “there’s no game this weekend” and even though the men’s side weren’t playing, the women still had a game – if they are marketed the same hopefully more people would attend.”
Overall, if the attendances in the WSL slowly keep getting better, it will continue to be a huge positive for the women’s game in England. But, it’s clear a lot more needs to be done to keep these attendances high and ultimately to stop the women’s game from going backwards after all the success it’s had in recent months.
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