League of Ireland Attendances 2023 – Gameweek 2

Having seen an impressive 30,221 people pass through the turnstiles on the opening weekend of the 2023 league season, Gameweek 2 had a tough act to follow. On initial inspection it would appear to have suffered a drop as 23,967 League of Ireland fans attended fixtures with all ten games taking place on Friday night.

But that wouldn’t really be a fair reading of the figures despite the bottom line total.

St Patrick’s Athletic drew the biggest crowd of the night with 4,930 turning up to watch the Saints earn a late 1-0 win over Shelbourne. That attendance was better than every single home gate of 2022. Their best of that season was 4,871 for the visit of Shamrock Rovers.

Bohemians were next with 4,432, and once again this figure beats their 2022 best of 3,640. Derry City welcomed 3,305 to the Ryan McBride Brandywell and that would have been their 3^rd highest crowd in 2022.

The theme continues with Waterford recording an attendance of 2,891 which, as you may have guessed by now, beat all their 2022 totals.

Galway United welcomed 2,304 and, whilst still an excellent crowd when compared to First Division over the last few seasons, would have ranked 5^th in 2022.

Moving on to Drogheda United who earned a 1-1 draw against Shamrock Rovers and their 2,182 would rank top of the charts when compared to 2022. Cobh continue the theme with 1,315 spectators which would be the best crowd of their 2022 season if you excluded the bumper attendances for the two Cork City visits last season.

Bray Wanderers 1,300 would have come in 1st in 2022 just surpassing the 1,298 on their opening home fixture against Cork City. It is well ahead of all the rest of their 2022 figures.

Athlone Town’s 592 may seem low compared to the rest but that is, in fact, the highest attendance when compared to their last season.

Only UCD’s 716 doesn’t really rank when compared to 2022 but when compared to the two other visits of Sligo Rovers last season (450, 480) it is well ahead of those totals.

So while the overall total appears down, the majority of clubs this week topped their 2022 best or at least loitered close to it. If some of the grounds capacities were larger, you could probably have seen bigger numbers posted as many of the clubs this week had to put up the “Sold Out” signs, something not terribly common to League of Ireland over the last number of decades.

In terms of average attendances, Gameweek 2's average was 2,397 compared to 3,022 last week. The Premier Division saw its average drop from 4,418 to 3,113 but interestingly the First Division increased from 1,626 to 1,680. 

As always, if any of these figures change in the coming days we will reflect them in edits to the article, but for now, the League of Ireland attendances continue to perform strongly as we move into Gameweek 3.

Gameweek 1 Attendances