Attendance at women’s football matches surged by 24% across Europe’s top leagues during the 2023/24 season, with England’s Women’s Super League (WSL) leading the charge, posting an impressive 41% year-on-year increase.
The WSL’s growth was largely driven by moving more games to larger stadiums, with Arsenal as a standout example. The club saw an average of 52,000 fans at games held at Emirates Stadium, a stark contrast to the 3,595 average at their traditional venue, Meadow Park. Arsenal also boasted the highest per-game attendance in Europe’s top leagues, with 29,999 fans on average – nearly triple that of the next highest, Manchester United, at 10,951.
Germany’s Frauen-Bundesliga, though seeing the smallest overall growth, made strides by reducing the number of games with fewer than 1,000 attendees by 10%. Games in the league also saw an increase in crowds of 1,000-5,000 fans, signaling steady improvements.
Two Circles analysts noted that the 2023 Women’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, while inspiring a global spotlight on women’s football, had less impact on European attendance growth compared to the UEFA Women’s Euros in 2022. The World Cup’s distant time zones were cited as a factor.
Still, the 2023/24 season marked a positive trend, as average attendances remained steady or even grew from the first to the second half of the season—a turnaround from previous years, where leagues such as the WSL, Liga F, and Frauen-Bundesliga had experienced mid-season drop-offs.
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