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League One has seen a sharp drop in attendances from the opening day of the season.
The 12 clubs who hosted opening day games saw, on average, nearly a 15% drop in attendance for their second game hosted at the weekend. 99,885 watched the opening day's games, but only 85,009 watched this weekend's action. Ten of the twelve sides recorded gates at the weekend under their average attendances for last season.
Only two sides saw rises from the opening day; Yeovil's gate leapt by nearly 50% when hosting Leeds - though Scunthorpe's gate nearly halved after hosting the Yorkshire side on the opening day - and Hartlepool saw an additional 114 fans through the doors, but fewer home fans, as Stockport brought nearly 200 more than Colchester.
Huddersfield, having sold 16,000 cut-price season tickets, had 2,000 less through their door with 'only' 13,189 coming to their second match -though it is still well above last season's average - while Leicester were the biggest losers, dropping over 5,000 supporters over their games with MK Dons and Tranmere.
While the Bank Holiday weekend can be seen as an attendance killer, the opening day also went almost un-opposed against live televised football with no Premier League games until the following weekend. This past weekend saw live TV games finishing and starting within 30 minutes of the traditional 3pm matches.
The Bulls' opening gate of 3,476 was nearly 100 lower than the opening game of the previous season, when Rotherham escaped with a 0-0 draw, but that game was not preceeded by a pair of away losses. The following gate, on the Bank Holiday weekend, was just 2,732 - down nearly 24% - even though the two games inbetween were both won.
