When Rocky and Apollo are fighting at the end of the movie and they do the close ups of Rocky and Apollo's face. If you look behind them, no one is at the Spectrum. The Arena is empty. But when they focus on the whole ring. The stadium is packed.
The stadium was empty because the 1st Rocky was already over budget (which wasn't much to begin with) and they couldn't possibly afford the extras needed to fill the Spectrum at the time.