{"id":429889,"date":"2026-02-17T05:32:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T05:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/429889\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T05:32:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T05:32:13","slug":"six-nations-2026-wales-record-lowest-cardiff-crowd-in-six-nations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/429889\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Nations 2026: Wales record lowest Cardiff crowd in Six Nations"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It was lower than the previous worst attendance of 58,349 against Italy in 2002 when Wales were in another losing streak.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The cost of a match-day experience in Cardiff has been suggested as the reason for some fans staying away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But the political turmoil in the domestic game, with the WRU looking to cut one region while facing a potential vote of no confidence among member clubs, is leaving disgruntled fans to turn away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before Sunday&#8217;s game, fans told BBC Sport the current crisis was &#8220;heartbreaking, sad and depressing&#8221; and many were no longer motivated to buy tickets.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Swansea council leader Rob Stewart, who has previously <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/rugby-union\/articles\/ceqz4nj80yqo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">spoken out against the Welsh Rugby Union&#8217;s plans<\/a> to potentially cut Ospreys, said fans were voting with their feet.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He said on social media: &#8220;It&#8217;s heart-breaking to see the Principality Stadium barely 3\/4 full today. Much as we love our Wales team, fans are voting with their feet and staying away.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Their message to the WRU is clear &#8211; we will stay away until you go away.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was lower than the previous worst attendance of 58,349 against Italy in 2002 when Wales were in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429890,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-429889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429889"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429889\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}