The 2024 Brasileirão averaged 25,773 paying fans per match, the second-highest figure in the competition’s history. Only 2023 did better, with 26,519. Flamengo alone averaged 51,084, which made them the best-supported side again.
Those numbers say plenty about where Brazilian football sits right now. This guide covers how attendance is counted, the best seasons on record, the biggest single crowds and why the same clubs keep topping the charts.
Key Takeaways
- 2023 holds the record average at 26,519 paying fans per match, with 2024 second on 25,773 and 2025 third on 25,531.
- Flamengo have led the league in attendance for four seasons in a row, reaching 58,554 per home game in 2025.
- The biggest crowd of 2024 was Vasco against Palmeiras in Brasília, with 64,848 paying fans in the CBF’s final count.
- Different sources report different figures, mostly because some count paying fans and others count everyone in the stadium.
How Brasileirão Attendance Is Counted
Brazilian football reports most attendance as pagantes, meaning paying fans. That figure leaves out anyone who got in without paying. A second figure, total attendance, counts everyone inside the ground.
This is why you will see different numbers for the same season. Flamengo’s 2023 average, for example, is quoted as 54,400 paying fans in one report and as close to 58,000 in total attendance elsewhere. Every figure below that is labelled as a paying average comes from the CBF’s season summaries.
The Best Seasons on Record
Here is how the top six seasons stack up, based on paying fans per match.
| Rank | Season | Average Paying Attendance |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2023 | 26,519 |
| 2 | 2024 | 25,773 |
| 3 | 2025 | 25,531 |
| 4 | 1983 | 22,953 |
| 5 | 2019 | 22,601 |
| 6 | 2022 | 21,646 |
The gap is the striking part. The three most recent seasons sit well above anything in the previous decades, and 2022 itself only ranks sixth. The CBF’s president at the time, Ednaldo Rodrigues, called the repeated 25,000 average a source of great happiness.
The 2024 Season in Detail
The league finished on 8 December 2024, with 376 matches played in front of fans and four behind closed doors, according to Brazilian reporting. Botafogo won the title and still ranked only 12th for attendance, at 25,700 per game. Palmeiras, the runners-up, were sixth with 31,300.
The top five clubs by average paying crowd looked like this:
| Club | Average Crowd |
|---|---|
| Flamengo | 51,084 |
| Corinthians | 43,605 |
| São Paulo | 39,903 |
| Bahia | 36,022 |
| Fluminense | 32,171 |
Flamengo’s average fell from 54,400 the previous year, but they still topped the table for the third season running and brought over 970,000 people to their 19 home games. They also appear in 10 of the 20 biggest crowds of the season, with São Paulo next on three.
The Biggest Crowds
1. Vasco vs Palmeiras, 22 September 2024
The largest gate of 2024 did not take place in Rio or São Paulo. Vasco sold their home match to Brasília, and the game at the Mané Garrincha Stadium drew 64,848 paying fans in the CBF’s final count. Media reports on the night gave 62,186 paid, with around 64,000 tickets sold.
Palmeiras won 1-0 through a Flaco López goal in the first half. Gross revenue came to R$7.5 million, the second highest in Brazilian football that year behind the Supercopa do Brasil match between São Paulo and Palmeiras.
2. Flamengo vs Ceará, Round 37 of 2025
The biggest crowd of 2025 was at the Maracanã, where Flamengo beat Ceará 1-0. The attendance was 73,244 in total with 66,785 paying fans, a record for the Maracanã since its renovation. The stadium’s capacity is 78,838.
Flamengo’s 2025 numbers were again the highest in the league. They averaged 58,554 fans per home game, took 1.1 million people to their 19 home matches and claimed 15 of the 20 biggest crowds of the season. They went on to win the title with 79 points.
Why Flamengo Dominate the Charts
The biggest reason is simple arithmetic. Flamengo play at the Maracanã, which holds nearly 79,000, so they have far more room than most clubs. A mid-sized ground simply cannot compete with that capacity, regardless of how loyal the supporters are.
The gap to the rest is large. In 2025, Cruzeiro were next with around 40,000 per match, so nearly 20,000 separated first and second.
Read More: Football Ultras Culture Explained
What Big Crowds Mean for Club Revenue
Gate receipts are where attendance turns into money. The R$7.5 million taken at Vasco against Palmeiras in Brasília shows what a single full house can bring in. Over a longer span, Palmeiras reported about R$573 million in matchday revenue at Allianz Parque in the ten years after it opened in November 2014, from 308 home matches.
Those figures help explain why clubs invest in stadiums and why a few move home games to bigger venues.
The Other End of the Table
Plenty of clubs play to small crowds. Red Bull Bragantino had the lowest average in 2025 at 4,916 paying fans per match, and their first home game of that season drew only 2,516 against Ceará at the small Municipal Stadium in Bragança Paulista, where they were playing during stadium renovations.
The 2024 table had a similar tail. The promoted and struggling clubs, such as Cuiabá, Atlético Goianiense and Juventude, all averaged under 9,000 in total attendance. Small-city clubs and temporary venues usually pull the league average down.
Following the Season
A packed stadium tends to make results harder to call. The Brazilian Série A league profile gives you the clubs, stadiums and standings in one place, and the Brazilian Série A AI predictions page covers each round’s fixtures. To compare with other leagues, use the AI football predictions hub.
What the Crowds Tell You About Brazilian Football
Three seasons in a row above 25,000 paying fans, after a long stretch in the low 20,000s, marks a clear step up. The league now draws well above the 1983 season, which sits fourth on the all-time list.
When you check the next set of attendance figures, look at the source before the number. A paying figure and a total figure for the same match can differ by several thousand, and the context matters as much as the headline.