Champions Cup hits attendance lows as Leinster crowds slump at Aviva Stadium
The Investec Champions Cup quarter-finals at the weekend saw the lowest collective attendance figure since the current scheduling format was introduced.
The four quarter-finals across England, France, Ireland and Scotland were played a week after the round of 16 phase of the continental competition and total attendances were down 11 per cent on last season.
Bath Rugby’s win over Northampton Saints and Glasgow Warriors’ loss to RC Toulon each drew sell-out crowds at a combined figure of 22,000.
Defending champions Bordeaux Begles, who have hosted a quarter-final at their Stade Chaban-Delmas for three consecutive seasons, recorded an uplift in attendance on last year to 32,930.
But the crowd at Irish giants Leinster fell to less than 19,000 for their win over Sale Sharks, down from 22,400 last season and barely a third of the 55,055 in 2024.
Collective Champions Cup reality
Collectively the four quarter-finals drew 73,599 fans, down from 82,778 last season. The 2025-26 figure is 30 per cent down on the 2024 high of 109,761.
In the other season where the quarter-finals have followed straight on from the round of 16 – the 2022-23 season – the collective attendance was 73,635. The year prior, when the quarter-finals were held in May, it was 84,901.
Critics will point to smaller host stadia for Bath Rugby and Glasgow Warriors compared to other quarter-final arenas from previous years, but Leinster’s fall would still have offset this increase.
It comes as the Champions Cup takes a break until semi-finals in May, where Bordeaux Begles will host Bath Rugby in Bordeaux and Leinster will take on RC Toulon in Dublin with the four teams looking to reach the finals in Bilbao next month.
Not one of the home teams in this year’s second-tier EPCR Challenge Cup – Ulster, Montpellier, Benetton or Zebre – saw an attendance higher than Glasgow’s low among the Champions Cup teams.