Some 431,505 spectators attended the nine fixtures during round one of the 2025 Toyota AFL Premiership season. That figure was almost 20,000 greater than the previous record, set during the opening weekend last year.
This weekend’s record crowd was only the fifth time in history that more than 400,000 fans have attended a single round. The average attendance in round one 2025 was 47,945.
AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon said: “Round one and all nine matches is always such an exciting time for all our clubs, and we are so thankful for all the fans turning out in record numbers.
“The clubs do so much work connecting with their fans and making the matches must attend events and on behalf of the AFL I want to thank all the fans, venues, broadcasters and clubs for giving us a round one for the history books.”
A decade of records
The biggest crowd over the weekend was the 80,735 who attended the Hawthorn vs Essendon match up at Melbourne Cricket Ground. It was the highest ever home and away crowd between these two clubs.
Another 80,000 saw Carlton play Richmond in the season opener on Thursday.
All five of the most-attended rounds of all time were registered in the last 10 years. The opening weekend in 2017 was the first time that the 400,000-mark was reached.