Here are attendance figures for the 1974 and 1975 seasons of the World Football League, an ambitious pro circuit that collapsed in a sea of red ink midway through its second season.
During the season, New York moved to Charlotte and became the Hornets, and Houston moved to Shreveport and became the Steamer, Jacksonville and Detroit both folded, and Chicago forfeited its last game. This list reflects the reported attendance figures for all 113 WFL games from 1974. 1975 will take a bit more work.
Also, all of these numbers (except possibly Birmingham and Memphis) should be taken with a big grain of salt, as many WFL teams were notorious for either papering the house or making up their attendance numbers. (NOTE: These numbers were compiled from newspaper reports, from summaries on worldfootballleague.org and from Mark Speck’s World Football League Encyclopedia. I believe this is the first semi-definitive list that contains all the extant data.)
| Team | G | Total | Avg. |
| Birmingham Americans | 11 | 408,484 | 37,135 |
| Jacksonville Sharks | 7 | 232,962 | 33,280 |
| Chicago Fire | 10 | 286,550 | 28,655 |
| Southern California Sun | 10 | 263,594 | 26,359 |
| Charlotte Hornets | 4 | 88,515 | 22,129 |
| Memphis Southmen | 10 | 215,051 | 21,505 |
| Shreveport Steamer | 5 | 99,297 | 19,859 |
| Philadelphia Bell | 10 | 194,879 | 19,488 |
| Houston Texans | 5 | 93,709 | 18,742 |
| Portland Storm | 9 | 136,754 | 15,195 |
| Florida Blazers | 9 | 134,081 | 14,898 |
| Hawaiians | 10 | 130,399 | 13,040 |
| New York Stars | 7 | 75,142 | 10,735 |
| Detroit Wheels | 6 | 61,335 | 10,223 |
| WFL TOTAL | 113 | 2,420,752 | 21,423 |
Here’s a video of the final drive from a Chicago/Jacksonville game from July 17, 1974.
| Team | G | Total | Average |
| Birmingham Vulcans | 7 | 166,730 | 23,819 |
| Memphis Southmen | 7 | 137,866 | 19,695 |
| Shreveport Steamer | 7 | 105,492 | 15,070 |
| Hawaiians | 6 | 90,242 | 15,040 |
| San Antonio Wings | 7 | 93,666 | 13,381 |
| Southern California Sun | 4 | 52,696 | 13,174 |
| Jacksonville Express | 6 | 77,906 | 12,984 |
| Charlotte Hornets | 4 | 43,699 | 10,925 |
| Portland Thunder | 6 | 47,976 | 7,996 |
| Chicago Winds | 1 | 3,470 | 3,470 |
| Philadelphia Bell | 5 | 16,143 | 3,229 |
| WFL TOTAL | 60 | 835,886 | 13,931 |
I was too young for the WFL (I’m a child of the USFL), but it was sure an interesting part of US sports history.
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