Premier League stadiums (2023/2024 season)
In this post we're going to look at Premier League Stadiums for the 2023/2024 season, see who has the biggest and smallest Premier League stadium and other interesting Premier League stadium data.
Smallest Premier League stadiums (2023/2024 season)
In this seasons EPL the current smallest Premier League stadium is Lutons Kenilworth Road stadium which has a capacity of 10356 people. Since their promotion to the Premier League Luton have embarked on a £10m work programme to improve the stadium and should Luton survive this season in the EPL there will surely be additional plans to expand the capacity.
Closely behind Luton is Bournemouths Vitality Stadium which has a capacity of 11464, in recent years Bournemouth have explored options to increase their capacity to meet demands of their ever growing fan base, even considering plans to build a completely new stadium.
Biggest Premier League stadiums (2023/2024 season)
From the smallest to the largest there is a huge difference in Premier League stadium capacities!
Manchester United's historic stadium, Old Trafford currently boast a capacity of 76962 which is significantly larger than Manchester City's Etihad Stadium in 2nd place which currently holds 62000 people.
Old Trafford boasts the capacity of a national stadium and has hosted International matches in both the mens and women's game in recent years as well as being included in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland's shortlist of stadiums to host UEFA Euro 2028 but was not part the final list of 10.
In recent years, rumours have circulated around potentially knocking down Old Trafford and redeveloping a completely new stadium on the same site.
What are Premier League stadium requirements
The Premier League Stadium requirements are actually relatively simple: any club that plays in the Premier League must have a stadium with a minimum capacity of 5,000 and at least 2,000 seats.
Nevertheless, with television & media coverage a massive income for the Premier League and the teams involved stadiums must also be able to accommodate rigging of cameras, additional space for broadcasters and an expansion of match day hospitality.
Highlighted heavily by Luton's promotion to the Premier League for the 2023/24 season, just because you're footballs good enough it doesn't automatically mean your stadium is! Luton had to lay out £10m in a very short timeframe in-order to get their stadium ready for their arrival in the Premier League.
Average Premier League stadium attendances
We've looked at the capacities of Premier League stadiums but what about the actually EPL match attendances?
The average EPL match attendance for the 2022/23 EPL season was roughly 40000 people with an average attendance of 97% of full capacity across all stadiums.
During the same season only Manchester United and Fulham managed sell out capacities with Fulham racking up 12 sell out crowds of their 25700 capacity Craven Cottage stadium.
Over the course of the seasons 19 home matches 5 teams (Man Utd, West Ham, Spurs, Arsenal & Liverpool) had a total attendance of over 1million people!!
What do Premier League stadiums mean for team income?
The Premier League is a multibillion pound business with a total squad value of €11.32bn in the 2022/23 season and an average player price of €13.47m across all 20 EPL teams. Global TV rights offer a huge income for both the Premier League itself and the teams within the EPL but match day attendance and ticket sales is also a big source of income for all EPL teams.
Premier League ticket prices do vary from club to club but if we take Liverpools Anfield stadium with a capacity of 55000, current ticket prices for the 2023/24 season range from £90 to £9 per person.
Although the number of seats in each price class varies if we take a simple average of roughy £50 per ticket over a capacity of 55000, that is a potential income of £2750000 per game, obviously this is a rough estimate as not all matches fill capacity and each match also has expenses like ground staff, security and the like but it gives a good idea of how important match day ticket sales are for EPL teams and just how hard Corona restrictions would have hit even the deepest pockets!
Ticket data from https://www.liverpoolfc.com/tickets/match-day-premier-league-prices
Premier League stadium map
Thanks to sportleaguemaps.com for providing map data on Premier League stadiums we can see where each stadiums lies in England. Greatest concentration of teams are in the north west of England and unsurprisingly around the capital, London. For the 2023/24 EPL season there are currently 7 London Premier League teams made up of Spurs, Arsenal, West Ham, Brentford, Fulham, Chelsea and Crystal Palace.
The shortest away fixture is currently the Merseyside derby between Everton and Liverpool and the longest away match is Bournemouth or Brighton vs Newcastle (depending on driving routes & conditions).