Exeter Chiefs director of rugby Rob Baxter says he will do what he can to create a side that can bring crowds back to Sandy Park.

The club closed their North Terrace for the first time for a league fixture in Sunday’s 34-28 win over Newcastle.

A crowd of just 7,071 attended the game at the 15,600-capacity home of last season’s beaten Prem finalists, despite the club cutting ticket prices earlier this month. , external

It led to an at times eerily quiet atmosphere at a ground that is normally noisy, especially for a league game.

The attendance lower than the 8,682 present for Exeter’s first home league game of the season against Gloucester last month – their first competitive game since being beaten by Northampton at Twickenham in June.

“The job I have to do to help build the crowd is to make sure the team perform well and win games of rugby,” Baxter told BBC Sport.

“Today we probably didn’t perform quite well enough, but having said that it did mean there was a game that had jeopardy in it right until the final whistle, so anybody here supporting it should have had a great entertaining day.

“They may have looked and gone ‘oh, I want it to be comfortable’, but actually they’ve stayed until the last second because the game was still in the balance, so we’ve ticked that box.

“When you have a fairly poor crowd there are things off the field that you have to address and look at as well.

“They are ongoing and I know a lot of people looking into those things.”

Having had a club-record worst season in the top flight in 2024-25, Exeter rallied last season to finish fourth last season before beating Bath at the Rec in the Prem semi-finals.

The club was taken over by Black Knight Rugby – part of the same American investment group that owns Premier League football side AFC Bournemouth – earlier this year.

On Monday 12 October, tickets for Exeter’s next home league game in the Prem against Harlequins on 31 October were on sale for between £75 and £97 in the West Grandstand, while seats in the opposite East Stand cost between £35 and £87.

Seats for the same game behind the in-goal area in the east of the ground cost from £10 for children to between £35 and £45 for an adult while standing prices around the ground for an adult go from £24.50 to as much as £55 for the most desirable area by the halfway line in the East Terrace.

Tickets are cheaper for Exeter’s two Prem Rugby Cup matches in November while chief executive Tony Rowe says prices will be reduced for more games before Christmas.

“The South West is full of hard-working people who live in a region where house prices are high and salaries do not allow for generous disposable incomes,” he said in a statement on the club website.

“We have made the decision to cut the price of some ticket categories for our league, European and cup games up to Christmas to thank our fans for their support in September and to ease the pressure on people’s pockets.

“The biggest reductions are on children and youth tickets to help fans with families.”