British and Irish Lions tour delivers a third ground record

The British and Irish Lions 2013 Australian Tour continued its record breaking by setting a third stadium record last night at Sydney's ANZ Stadium.

The 83,702 supporters who attended the third, final and deciding Test at ANZ Stadium surpassed the venue's attendance record of 83,418, which was set in 2004 by the Wallabies and All Blacks during a Bledisloe Cup Test.

The attendance was the largest for any sporting event since the former Olympic Stadium changed its configuration following the 2000 Sydney Olympic games.

The first Test of the DHL Australia 2013 Lions Tour also produced a ground record crowd for Suncorp Stadium in Brisbane, with 52,499 attending the series opener.

Last week's second Test saw the previous record for a sporting event at Etihad Stadium, set 12 years ago during the Lions last visit to Victoria, broken with 56,771 coming through the gates.

Last night's crowd marked the third stadium record for the DHL Australia 2013 Lions Tour and the sixth sell-out match of the Tour since it began four and half weeks ago in Perth.

Over the nine matches of the Tour a total of 389,400 have come through the gates, making the DHL Australia 2013 Lions Tour the most attended Tour in the game's history, outside of a Rugby World Cup.

Lions Committee Chairman Gerald Davies, who went on two tours as a player, in 1968 and 1971, and who managed the 2009 visit to South Africa explained "the Lions are special.

"There is no other tour like it in the professional era and there will have been worldwide interest in the final Test."

With the current agreement between the Lions and SANZAR (the joint venture of the South African Rugby Union, the New Zealand Rugby Union and the Australian Rugby Union) set to run out after the next New Zealand tour in 2017, negotiations will begin next year on a new one which promises to be markedly different because of the explosion of interest in the Lions.

Davies told The Guardian "we will start with a clean sheet of paper.

"Everything will be up for discussion, from the financial side to scheduling, itineraries, the strength of opposition in warm-up matches and the number of matches played. The Lions are hugely important to the four home unions and the three Sanzar nations and no one wants the 2017 tour to be the last."

The Lions' jersey is the best-selling shirt in world rugby and the tourists have become such a significant commercial brand that the huge profits from this tour will sustain the ARU for years.

Davies added "the Lions are about far more than money.

"There are four strands: sporting, financial, social and cultural. The players are ambassadors for British and Irish rugby and have spread the word about the game here."

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