Is this a big coincidence or is something else going on?

[Ted Baxter]

I was just updating some stats from 2023 & noticed that the round 21 2023 crowd between Penrith & Canterbury was 21,525. That number struck me as peculiar because that was the exact same crowd from round 10 2024 (i.e. Friday).

Then looking further, the crowds for the round 26 2023 game Penrith V Parramatta, the round 27 2023 Penrith V North Queensland & Qualifying Final 2023 Penrith V New Zealand were all wait for it... 21,525!!! That's 4 crowds last year (3 in a row) + 1 this year (all at BlueBet Stadium) are all the same crowd. I confirmed these crowds with the NRL website. Also note that round 2 2023 Penrith V Parramatta was 21,522. The repeated figure is approximately 96% of the ground's capacity.

What is the likelihood of this happening?

[GregRLP]

Could it be that they only sell a maximum 21,525 tickets and leave the extra capacity for other non-paying/non-crowd purposes.

[Ted Baxter]

Possibly, which is why I put the 96% figure in there. I have never come across something that before (except at Newtown Henson Park games LOL)

[Max Turner]

They must sell tickets to a maximum which is slightly below venue capacity and leave some room for those entering with season passes and similar, as Greg says. But surely the people with passes would also be included in the crowd figure.

Penrith's QF against Parramatta in 2022 was above this (21,863), so what changed beginning in 2023?

I can only assume this is lazy reporting by the club or something, because a coincidence seems too unlikely.

[Ted Baxter]

The only question to me would be why always 21,525, why not 21,526 or 21,524? It's interesting though.