When Dublin’s Croke Park and Toulouse’s Le Stadium play hosts to this weekend’s Investec Champions Cup semi-finals, it’ll mark a bumper weekend of attendance figures for European rugby’s governing body EPCR.
Because the sell-outs across the Irish Sea – for Leinster’s clash with Northampton Saints – and the English Channel – for Toulouse’s tie against Harlequins – will represent the largest cumulative attendance for a semi-final weekend since 2009.
In that season 15 years ago, Munster hosted Leinster in Croke Park while Cardiff played Leicester Tigers in Cardiff’s Principality Stadium.
Records?
There were 126,420 spectators then and there are expected to be 115,450 this weekend, a figure not surpassed in any previous Champions Cup semi-finals.
All three competitions – Premiership, Top 14 and United Rugby Championship – are represented, with a number of internationals and world stars set to show off their skills.
And the numbers set to enjoy the Champions Cup this weekend in person are a huge tonic for the sport of rugby, which, on the whole, has been struggling.
Excluding the Covid-19 seasons, the last five semi-final weekends have seen aggregate attendances of 88,000, 58,000, 59,000, 73,000 and 91,000. This year, therefore, is showing huge growth on those that came before it.
And yet more history can be made. The only other club rugby union match to be played at Croke Park was that famous semi-final between Munster and Leinster, where each block of seats was split into a chequered pattern to form a red and blue motif around the entirety of the 83,300-seater.
Champions Cup tonic
In that match 83,208 turned up, but any number higher than that will break the attendance record for a single Investec Champions Cup semi-final – and go as close as Ireland, and the British Isles, can go to the world record 99,000 that watched the domestic Top 14 French final in Barcelona’s Camp Nou eight years ago.
In the other semi-final, tickets flew out of the door in hours as Toulouse and Harlequins fans looked to secure their seat at Le Stadium in the south of France.
It is a sign of what could have been achieved if La Ville Rose, too, had a 83,000 capacity stadium. Instead 33,000 seats will be occupied by fans of the overwhelming home favourites and the Londoner underdogs.
A lot has been said about the Champions Cup since South African sides from the United Rugby Championship were allowed into what is known as Europe’s, and club rugby’s, greatest competition. It has divided fans and players alike.
But the product this year has been an exceptional one, soured only slightly by the Bulls sending a second-string side to Northampton and La Rochelle needing to play Leinster just days after a trip down to the southern hemisphere.
Results drive metrics and metrics help to drive commercial appeal. And the Champions Cup is ticking along nicely. And in a further show of rude health, tickets for the final at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium are also flying. All that’s left to say is chapeau to the Champions Cup and let’s get going.
2009 delights