Edmonton Elks had highest attendance spike in CFL this season
The Edmonton Elks are a hot ticket item once again.
With the team prepping to host the CFL West Final next week, things couldn’t have gone much better for the Elks this season compared to last. Edmonton has managed to go from missing the playoffs in 2025 with a 7-11 record to the top of the West Division this season with a sparkling 13-5 record.
That’s a dramatic shift, and the newfound taste of victory has resulted in the biggest shift in attendance across the CFL this past season. The Elks welcomed a total of 201,786 fans to Commonwealth Stadium over the course of nine home games this year, which is a 17.7 per cent increase over last year’s total of 171,451.
According to CFL Stats Geek, that was by far the biggest attendance swing across the nine-team league. The next closest was the Saskatchewan Roughriders, who experienced a 3.7 per cent increase in attendance.
Final Attendance Check.
A reminder that these figures are not including the home away from home games that BC/TO had earlier in the season.
If you account for those games in both 26 and 25 counts the overall attendance dropped by 1.6% with an avg. attendance of 22,570. #CFL pic.twitter.com/cQR4WTnGSV
— CFL Stats Geek (@CFLStatsGeek) October 25, 2026
A couple of CFL teams nearly matched the swing going the other direction. The Hamilton Tiger-Cats saw attendance plummet by 10.8 per cent year-over-year. The pitiful Ottawa RedBlacks, who finished the season with a 1-17 record, saw the biggest decrease at 16.9 per cent.
Edmonton averaged a crowd of 22,421 this season, which beats out last year’s average of 19,050 by over 3,000 people a game. The biggest turnout saw a crowd of 31,757 pack into Commonwealth for a mid-August battle against the Saskatchewan Roughriders, while the Labour Day rematch against the Calgary Stampeders attracted 31,531 fans.
In both instances, the Elks opted to open up the upper-bowl, something that hadn’t been done since 2023, to meet ticket demands.
Edmonton will play one more home game at Commonwealth Stadium this season when they take to the field in the West Final on Nov. 7 against either the Roughriders or the BC Lions. With fan interest peaking, the team may be looking to surpass numbers from the regular season.
From there, the hope is that a large contingent of Elks fans will eventually make the journey down the QE2 to Calgary to root for the team in the 113th Grey Cup.