The biggest crowd for the Burnie v Devonport games that I can remember was just over 6000 at West Park during the Peter German era in '97. The local paper used to really promote the derbies well and there were quite a lot of people who didn't normally go to the footy attending those games. Burnie's average home game attendance for that season was 2200 which was bolstered a bit of course by the coastal derbies but Peter German really got the local community involved and interested in the footy which also had a very positive effect on crowd numbers. These days many of the TSL games would be lucky to get 200 paying customers which wouldn't even cover costs of staging the games so the low gate takings are now a liability instead of an income positive asset.
I recall going to a match at KGV in either the second or third year of TSL when Hobart played Glenorchy and it was a TV game, it rained absolute stair rods all day, light snow fell and the final score was something like 4.11 to 0.6, paying crowd that day was 63! (Glenorchy President at the time told us that).
I know Hobart had several matches at the TCA that didn't pull 100 paying spectators either in their time in the TSL.
We used to make more money on our Good Friday match than the rest of the matches put together. How on earth these clubs make any money at all to stage the competition is a wonder. Sponsorship is non existent, looking back through the old footage of TFL grounds from even 20 years ago there were sponsors hoardings on every fence and building in the grounds, nowdays there's hardly any.
In the SFL Hobart doesn't pull many spectators either but fortunately the overheads are much, much lower.
One thing that surprises me is, for all their success in the last ten-twelve years, is how few supporters support New Norfolk anymore.
I miss those days of big crowds and a decent local media that ramped up the whole thing to make it even bigger.