In more than 750 rounds of NSL matches from 1977 to 2003/04, where up to 12 matches were played per round, the highest aggregate attendance for a round was 58,800 over eight matches in round 2, 2000/01, which included 14,000-plus home crowds for Newcastle United and Perth Glory.

It was a different story at Melbourne's Bob Jane Stadium that weekend however, where a mere 1400 watched Archie Thompson score for Carlton in its 2-2 draw with Wollongong Wolves.
But let's go back to those 12-match NSL rounds. Yes, that's right, at one stage the old national league had a whopping 24 teams up against each other each weekend.

This was from 1984 to 1986, when the league was split into two conferences, based loosely on a north-south breakdown of teams.

It was a bold move by the authorities, expanding from a single tier competition of 16 teams in 1983 – the theory for the struggling league at the time being that more local derbies (the north division consisted mostly of Sydney teams, the south division was mostly Melbourne teams) would stimulate increased interest in the terraces.

After registering an average 4,200 crowd per game in its first three seasons 1977-1979, the NSL’s average attendance had dropped to 2,700 in the 1983 season.

However the two-conference format didn't really work – in its first year (1984) the regular season average dropped to 2,300, then down to an all-time low of 2,200 per game in 1985.

It's amazing looking back at media match reports from the 1985 NSL season and seeing crowds such as 125 for a Green Gully home game, 150 watching four-time NSL Champions Sydney City at inner-Sydney Wentworth Park, and 202 at Penrith Park to see Penrith City take on Canberra City.

After reverting back to a single conference system in 1987, then to "summer soccer" in 1989/90, the trend in national league average crowds was upwards.

But nothing comes close to the increase between the last NSL season (2003/04) and first edition of the A-league (2005/06), when the season average skyrocketed from 4,050 to 10,955 per game and then 12,927 and 14,610 for the next 2 years.
The last 2 seasons have been 13,041 (12-13) & 12,500 (14-15) doesn’t include finals