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The United Rugby Championship (URC) has broken its all-time single round attendance record for the second time in three weeks as more than 146,000 fans bought tickets for round nine.
A crowd of 26,632 at the Loftus Versfeld Stadium in Pretoria, where the Bulls narrowly beat the Lions 30-28, helped push the total figure for round nine to 146,046.
This beat the previous record, set earlier this month in round eight, of 135,747 which saw sold-out venues across the holiday and New Year period.
“To be acknowledging another attendance record so soon after setting the previous achievement is hard to believe,” said URC chief executive Martin Anayi.
“Once again, we take our hats off to our clubs who are really taking great strides in their approach to promoting their games and providing fans with match-day experiences that keeps drawing them back.
“Alongside the strong attendances, we know the broadcast audiences were also in high numbers and it’s clear that the Vodacom URC is going from strength to strength thanks to the support of everyone involved and the ever-increasing competitive nature of the league.”
The new benchmark figure comes off the back of a record 1.6 million total attendance for the 2022-23 season, which also saw the highest-ever crowd for the league’s Grand Final of 56,334.
An all-time high of 37.4 million also watched across the campaign on television.
There are nine more rounds of the regular season remaining before the URC reaches its knockout stage on June 7.
Round 10 is set to take place from February 16-18 with Welsh side Scarlets taking on the defending champions Munster in Llanelli.
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