Just under 70m tickets were sold for UK-based sporting events in 2016, according to a study compiled by Deloitte.

The majority of the 69.8m tickets purchased were for professional football matches (45.2m), while Wimbledon was the best attended one-off event with an aggregate spectatorship of 494,000 over the 14 day period.

Despite not hosting any major one-off global events, 2016’s total was just one per cent shy of 2015’s figure. In 2015, England hosted the Rugby World Cup.

Premier League (13.9m) and Championship (9.9m) games accounted for more than half of the football tickets sold.

Following football was horseracing and equestrian (7.4m), rugby union (5m), cricket (2.3m) and rugby league (2.3m).

Dan Jones, Sports Business Group partner at Deloitte, said that 2016 was “another hugely successful year for sport in the UK”.

“The fact that the total is so high, despite the absence of hosting any major one-off global events, it a reflection of the UK public’s enduring appetite for watching live sport,” he added.