Edinburgh celebrate 100,000th fan

• 17 May 2024
• News

Edinburgh Rugby will surpass 100,000 fans through the turnstiles from regular season rugby for the first time at tonight’s sold out BKT URC clash against reigning champions, Munster.

Record crowds at Hive Stadium combined with an historic 1872 Cup derby at Scottish Gas Murrayfield have seen the club race past the milestone ahead of the full-house home finale, with a place in the last-eight on the line.

The 2023 1872 Cup crowd was the largest in the club’s history (37904) – smashing the 2019 derby record by some 10,000 fans – leading to an average home gate of 9,616 for the 23/24 campaign.

Overall regular season home crowds have grown a third since Edinburgh made Hive Stadium its home in 2021, continuing to deliver record attendances year-on-year since the capital move.

Edinburgh Rugby Managing Director, Douglas Struth, said: “First of all, a huge thank you to each-and-every fan who has joined us at our games this season and been part of this incredible journey for the club.

“Our new home is delivering on all we had hoped for, and the fans have taken to it superbly, creating an incredible atmosphere in the fanzone and in-stadium, week-in, week-out.

“Regular season matches are a useful yardstick for our growing fanbase, so to pass the 100,000^–mark for the first time is a fantastic achievement for everyone associated with the club and one we’re rightly proud of.”

Since relocating to Hive Stadium, Edinburgh Rugby has:

• Grown average, regular season home crowds by 33%
• Grown season ticket membership by 45%
• Grown social media following by 130% (122,000 in 2019 to over 280,000 today)
• Increased club merchandise sales by 350% (2019 to 2023)

What’s more is Edinburgh is currently placed second in social media engagements-per-follower across the 40 elite clubs in the BKT URC, Top 14 and English Premiership, surpassing 4 million engagements and 100 million impressions this season alone.

“We invest a great deal of time and energy into in our social media content, branding and merchandise, and matchday experience,” added Struth.

“We want to put on a show and make everyone feel welcome every time we play at home, and strive to improve the Edinburgh Rugby experience, which is consistently recognised as excellent by independent fan research, every year.”

Alongside the off-field atmosphere, continued investment in the development of homegrown talent ‘where local players become legends’, supplemented by quality overseas additions, is the lasting vision of Edinburgh Rugby, which will have a 90% Scottish qualified senior squad next season (38/42).

Scotland stars Darcy Graham, Duhan van der Merwe and Grant Gilchrist are among a host of club greats staying in the capital, alongside some exciting new additions like Scotland number 8 Magnus Bradbury and Waratahs centre Mosese Tuipulotu.

The club also remains committed to delivering a robust community outreach programme, with more than £25,000 raised for local causes, 45 community appearances at constituent clubs, schools, and charities from professional players and over 15,000 young people engaged at regular rugby activities across this season alone, including but not limited to:

• More than 500 school children completing ‘Tackle Maths’, the club’s STEM curricular initiative ran in partnerships with Main Club Partner Scottish Building Society
• Over 65 identified marginalised young people supported by the club’s ‘Prosper Programme’
• Over 50 free mascot packages and 20 free camp spaces for young people living within the ‘Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation’ (SIMD1/2)
• Two Inclusive (mixed ability) Festivals hosted for over 200 participants

Struth added: “Being a connected, community, family club is really important to us and our supporters, so it’s great to see so much of what we strive to achieve on and off the pitch coming to fruition.

“We know we still have a lot of work to do but we are absolutely aiming to break last season’s record season ticket membership this summer and continue this amazing trajectory and journey with our fans.

“We believe the ambition of consistent capacity crowds at Hive Stadium is becoming a reality and that we can do something really special here.

“There’s a great feeling around Edinburgh Rugby and I would encourage everyone to come and be part of it.”

Background information:

• Regular fixtures are competitive fixtures scheduled consistently as part of the season and do not include pre-season or knockout matches, given the existence and number of these fixtures can vary season-on-season
• Attendance growth statistics compared to the club’s final full (pre-pandemic) season at Scottish Gas Murrayfield featuring crowds (2018/19) versus the third season in Hive Stadium (2023/24)
• Average gates compared in the event of fluctuations of the number of regular season games (for instance, Edinburgh v Cardiff behind closed doors in 2022) or league / cup restructures creating more / less matches in the regular season calendar