All-Time WFL Attendance

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.)

 

1974 WFL Attendance
TeamGTotalAvg.
Birmingham Americans11408,48437,135
Jacksonville Sharks7232,96233,280
Chicago Fire10286,55028,655
Southern California Sun10263,59426,359
Charlotte Hornets488,51522,129
Memphis Southmen10215,05121,505
Shreveport Steamer599,29719,859
Philadelphia Bell10194,87919,488
Houston Texans593,70918,742
Portland Storm9136,75415,195
Florida Blazers9134,08114,898
Hawaiians10130,39913,040
New York Stars775,14210,735
Detroit Wheels661,33510,223
WFL TOTAL1132,420,75221,423

 

Here’s a video of the final drive from a Chicago/Jacksonville game from July 17, 1974.


 

1975 WFL Attendance
TeamGTotalAverage
Birmingham Vulcans7166,73023,819
Memphis Southmen7137,86619,695
Shreveport Steamer7105,49215,070
Hawaiians690,24215,040
San Antonio Wings793,66613,381
Southern California Sun452,69613,174
Jacksonville Express677,90612,984
Charlotte Hornets443,69910,925
Portland Thunder647,9767,996
Chicago Winds13,4703,470
Philadelphia Bell516,1433,229
WFL TOTAL60835,88613,931

 

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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