Success is what brings in crowd levels. Has always been the case.
Exeter were a prime example of that in the premier days, regular got well over 1000 a week due to winning at home 99 percent of the time even though they were awful away from home most of the time. And the racing there was absolutely rubbish, gate and go.
Having a big council funded stadium with a nice, good race track doesn't guarantee a good crowd as Belle Vue have found out.