Average Stadium Capacity in the Premier League

The Premier League is one of the most-watched and loved football divisions in the world. There are millions of people who watch English top-flight matches every time they are being played. The irony is that there are millions of people actually in England that aren’t allowed to watch certain matches legally, presuming they aren’t being broadcast on television.

As a result, only those that are actually inside the football grounds during matches will be legally watching many games played in England, but the amount of people doing so will vary from year to year depending on the grounds being used.

Looking at the 2024-2025 Season

In order to get a sense of how many people get to watch football matches played in the English top-flight on average, we will have a look at the 2024-2025 Premier League season. Obviously, this is therefore limited to the specific football grounds in operation and the teams that were in the league at the time.

The figures are taken from transfermarkt.co.uk:

Obviously, the average number of attendees at a football ground sometimes needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. Manchester City, for example, often have empty seats at the Etihad and yet report that they are sold out for games.

What we can see, though, is that most clubs are often close to capacity for the majority of their matches played in the Premier League, which means that the average attendance across the division is high. What lowers it, of course, is the fact that some clubs, like Bournemouth, have incredibly small stadiums compared to where other top-flight teams play their home games.

How it Has Changed Over the Years

One of the key things when it comes to Premier League capacities is how the grounds have changed over the years. If you were to look at the English top-flight from 1992-1993, for example, you would see that the majority of the grounds being used had significantly smaller capacities. That was the case not just because of the fact that some of the stadiums in use were much smaller at the time. Here is a look at the football grounds being used that season and their capacity at the time:

*Wimbledon didn’t have a home stadium at the time and so played their matches at Selhurst Park.

@thekitroomcoWhich Premier League club has the highest attendance this season 👀♬ Blade Runner 2049 – Synthwave Goose

You can see from the table that there were only four stadiums with a capacity of more than 40,000 during the 1992-1993 season, compared to nine during the 2024-2025 campaign. On top of that, some of the bigger grounds have been developed and changed over the years, so the likes of Old Trafford have seen nearly 20,000 more seats added, whilst Anfield has increased by a similar figure.

Meanwhile, a club like Tottenham Hotspur moved from White Hart Lane, which boasted a capacity of 36,230, to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which can welcome 62,850 supporters.

The Future of the Premier League’s Average Stadium Capacity

The interesting thing is how it will change in the future. The longer clubs like Bournemouth remain in the Premier League, the more the temptation will be there to increase the capacity of the stadium that they play their matches in. We know that Everton will be leaving Goodison Park, with its 39,414 capacity, and playing in the Everton Stadium at Bramley-Moore Dock in Liverpool, where 52,888 people will be able to watch games being played.

Clubs that were once playing in one of the biggest grounds, like Chelsea, have found that they have slipped down the pecking order.

𝙊𝙁𝙁𝙄𝘾𝙄𝘼𝙇: Liverpool have been named the #1 most watched club in the Premier League, with a global audience of 471 million last season.

LIVERPOOL FOOTBALL CLUB. MASSIVE. 🔴 pic.twitter.com/qYEF4zwceE

— Anfield Sector (@AnfieldSector) August 10, 2024

There is also the fact that teams with bigger grounds are likely to be promoted. At the start of the 2024-2025 season, for example, the three promoted teams were Leicester City, Ipswich Town and Southampton, with stadiums that had capacities of 32,259, 30,056 and 32,384 respectively.

When the 2025-2026 campaign gets underway, meanwhile, it is likely that Leeds United, Sheffield United and Burnley will gain promotion, depending on the result of the Play-Offs. They play in stadiums with capacities of 37,890, 32,702 and 21,994, which will see two larger and one smaller venue arrive.

That will obviously change year on year, depending on which teams it is that get promoted and which ones that go down. The Stadium of Light in Sunderland, for example, can see 48,707 people fit inside it for matches, which is larger than any other ground in the Championship during the 2024-2025 season and also bigger than 13 grounds in the Premier League during the same campaign.

Although ticket sales are far down the list of revenue-generators for Premier League clubs in the era of television contracts, they are still important enough for clubs to look to increase them where possible.