THE SPLIT opening round of this year's premiership season drew the third-best total attendance for a single round in the history of the game.

The official attendance figure for the opening round was 365,507.

"The attendance of 365,507 for the opening round has provided a compelling start to the new season and the number of upsets and high-quality matches across the round augurs well for a great race to the 2013 flag across the rest of the season," AFL chief executive officer Andrew Demetriou said.

"Coupled with the very strong attendance figures at the matches themselves, we have also seen some outstanding results with television viewer numbers around the Adelaide v Essendon and Carlton v Richmond games in particular, with both matches drawing more than 1.2 million combined viewers across free to air and subscription television.

"At this early stage of the year, AFL club membership across the competition is already well on track to eclipse last year’s all-time record tally of 707,621, and the clubs and the players deserve great credit for the peerless match-day experience at every AFL game."

The best attendances for a single round in the history of the game
367,974 – Round 22, 1998
367,792 – Round one, 2012
365,507 – Round one, 2013
364,544 – Round one, 2007
361,003 – Round 17, 2009
357,948 – Round 21, 2007
350,885 – Round three, 2008
349,489 – Round one, 2009
347,824 – Round six, 2010
346,177 – Round three, 2005