Adelaide has smashed its membership record in its first season at Adelaide Oval.

The AFL today released its official membership audit results, showing Adelaide reached 54,294 members to the end of July.

Crows chief operating officer Nigel Smart said the 17 per cent growth on last year, coupled with the AFL’s highest home team attendances, was an outstanding result.

“We’ve had fantastic support this year from our members with the move to Adelaide Oval,” he said.

 “To have so many members, of which 42,857 are season ticketholders, is really satisfying. We are very proud of these numbers.

“Much of our membership inventory for match access has been sold out this year and although that restricted our ability to grow our overall ticketed membership numbers, it’s a great position to be in.

"For the Crows to also have the highest home game attendances in the AFL so far this season shows the fans are enjoying the Adelaide Oval experience.

“There has already been significant interest in 2015 memberships, especially from fans who have had a small taste of the Adelaide Oval experience this year.”

Adelaide's previous membership record was 50,976 in 2007.

AFL Chief Executive Officer Gillon McLachlan confirmed that 2014 AFL club membership had reached 804,480 members nationally – the highest recorded figure in the game’s history and an increase of 47,763 on last year’s total.

The results also showed that 12 out of 18 AFL clubs have broken all-time club membership records in 2014.

The membership of AFL clubs comprised 706,228 club access members with match-day entry (compared to 670,811 in 2013) and 98,252 non-access members (compared to 85,906 in 2013).

McLachlan said this year’s record membership numbers reflected the passion and loyalty of AFL fans and their willingness to forge a deep connection with their club.

“The membership growth of both Adelaide clubs over the past 12 months is outstanding and has clearly been driven by a combination of on-field success and the introduction of the newly developed Adelaide Oval,” McLachlan added.

“The manner in which the people of South Australia have embraced the new Adelaide Oval has undoubtedly been one of the highlights of the 2014 season.”

McLachlan noted that 15 of the 18 AFL clubs had experienced membership growth across 2014, saying it was testament to the time and effort devoted to building membership by each club, including their players, coaches and administrative staff.

“The number of new benchmarks achieved in 2014 illustrates the outstanding job our clubs do in growing membership and engaging fans by making themselves accessible throughout the community,” McLachlan said.

“With more fans signed up to their club than ever before I want to urge members to make the most of their membership and support their club by attending as many games as possible over the course of a season.”

All but three clubs – Brisbane, Carlton and St Kilda – recorded increases on their 2013 membership tally, with Adelaide, Fremantle, North Melbourne, Port Adelaide and Sydney recording double-digit growth.

Collingwood has the largest membership in the competition, taking its total membership to 79,347 – the highest ever for an AFL club – while Hawthorn (68,650), Richmond (66,122), Essendon (60,646), West Coast (58,529) and Adelaide (54,249) are the competition’s other clubs beyond 50,000 members.