The Week 21 numbers look like this…
| 5 year comparison | ||||||||
| Week 21 | 162 GP | YTD | ||||||
| Avg | +/- | GP | Avg | +/- | Avg | +/- | GP | |
| 2006 | 14,771 | 9 | 15,093 | 15,424 | 137 | |||
| 2007 | 17,381 | 17.67% | 9 | 16,134 | 6.90% | 15,996 | 3.71% | 138 |
| 2008 | 15,625 | -10.11% | 7 | 16,409 | 1.70% | 17,149 | 7.21% | 139 |
| 2009 | 23,667 | 51.47% | 6 | 15,819 | -3.59% | 16,572 | -3.37% | 149 |
| 2010 | 14,347 | -39.38% | 8 | 16,500 | 4.31% | 16,500 | -0.44% | 162 |
| YTD – 162 Games | ||||
| Average | Median | %<10K | %>20k | |
| 2006 | 15,093 | 12,979 | 21.60% | 16.67% |
| 2007 | 16,134 | 14,680 | 9.26% | 24.69% |
| 2008 | 16,409 | 15,188 | 11.73% | 24.69% |
| 2009 | 15,819 | 14,525 | 15.43% | 19.75% |
| 2010 | 16,500 | 14,384 | 8.02% | 21.60% |
Here are the attendance comparisons to 2009:
| MLS Attendance – Equal # of Home Games | |||||||
| 2009 | 2010 | ||||||
| Att | Cap % | Att | Att +/- | GP | Cap % | Cap | |
| Seattle | 30,204 | 93.22% | 36,155 | 19.70% | 11 | 101.84% | 35,500 |
| Toronto | 20,220 | 92.00% | 20,655 | 2.15% | 11 | 93.98% | 21,978 |
| Philadelphia | NA | NA | 20,343 | NA | 9 | 89.09% | 18,500 |
| LA Galaxy | 19,292 | 71.45% | 20,319 | 5.32% | 9 | 75.26% | 27,000 |
| N.Y./N.J. Red Bulls | 12,487 | 49.57% | 17,425 | 39.54% | 10 | 69.18% | 25,189 |
| Houston | 15,836 | 70.38% | 17,061 | 7.74% | 11 | 75.83% | 22,500 |
| Real Salt Lake | 16,213 | 78.95% | 16,755 | 3.35% | 11 | 86.64% | 19,340 |
| Chicago | 13,027 | 65.13% | 15,486 | 18.87% | 9 | 77.43% | 20,000 |
| D.C. United | 15,173 | 67.44% | 14,471 | -4.63% | 11 | 64.32% | 22,500 |
| ChivasUSA | 16,211 | 60.04% | 14,268 | -11.99% | 9 | 52.84% | 27,000 |
| Columbus Crew | 13,660 | 68.30% | 14,173 | 3.76% | 11 | 70.87% | 20,000 |
| Colorado Rapids | 12,918 | 71.42% | 13,158 | 1.86% | 9 | 72.75% | 18,086 |
| NE Revolution | 14,188 | 63.06% | 11,814 | -16.73% | 10 | 52.51% | 22,500 |
| FC Dallas | 9,407 | 44.39% | 10,889 | 15.75% | 10 | 51.38% | 21,193 |
| KC Wizards | 10,010 | 96.39% | 10,109 | 0.99% | 11 | 97.34% | 10,385 |
| San Jose | 11,104 | 62.65% | 9,638 | -13.21% | 10 | 93.57% | 10,300 |
My disclaimer about the capacity calculations
For my calculations, I’ve taken the 3 teams playing in Amercan football stadiums, DCU in RFK, Houston in Robertson and New England in Foxboro and assigned maximum capacities at 22,500. I took the 22,500 number from an approximate average of the soccer specific stadiums in use.
- Philly’s first two home games were played at Lincoln Financial Field. The announced capacity for the Union was published as 38,000 and will be calculated as such.
- San Jose’s 4th match in 2009 was at Oakland Alameda Coliseum and drew over 15,800. Their 7th match was also at OAC and they drew over 17,100.
Observations
Chicago had a fair crowd of 14,000+ for its midweek tilt v the Revs. A record crowd in Toronto saw their 17 game home unbeaten streak come to an end. San Jose also set an attendance record(at Buck Shaw) as they beat the Galaxy. What looked like another drab turnout at Crew Stadium was reported at 16,000+. A typical soft showing in Dallas, despite the club’s success. A full house in Kansas City. Can’t wait to see how they draw in their new stadium next year. Almost 19,000 saw a thrilling match in Houston. A little over 12,100 came out in rain soaked DC to see their first win in 2 months.
Regardless of how well San Jose and the Wizards did at the gate, when you have home games in Columbus, Dallas, San Jose and Kansas City in the same week, it’s a real numbers buster.
Rookie Watch: Tony Tchani got his first assist in MLS. Need some help from readers for other outstanding rookie performances.
Joel Lindpere, on my preseason ‘watch list’(bottom of post) had a good game for RBNY v TFC. Kei Kamara scored and had 2 assists for the Wizards, while Ryan Smith got his 8th assist for KC.
Week 21 Games Chicago 2 Chicago Fire Confidential New England 1 Revolution Soccer Toronto 1 TFC Connected RBNY 4 Red Bulls Reader San Jose 1 San Jose Center Line Soccer Los Angeles 0 LA – Official Blog Columbus 3 Columbus Dispatch – Crew XTra Colorado 1 Undercurrent FC Dallas 1 3rd Degree – Buzz Carrick Chivas USA 0 Chicago Fire Confidential Kansas City 4 Kansas City – Hillcrest Road New England 1 Revolution Soccer Houston 4 Soccer y Fútbol – Jose de Jesus Ortiz Chicago 3 Chicago Fire Confidential DC United 2 DCU – Steve Goff – Soccer Insider Philadelphia 0 Philadelphia Union Talk GP W D L GF GA GFA GAA PPG PTS GD Los Angeles 21 13 4 4 32 14 1.52 0.67 2.05 43 18 Columbus 21 12 4 5 31 20 1.48 0.95 1.90 40 11 Real Salt Lake 21 11 6 4 36 16 1.71 0.76 1.86 39 20 Dallas 20 9 9 2 28 17 1.40 0.85 1.80 36 11 NY Red Bull 21 10 4 7 25 23 1.19 1.10 1.62 34 2 San Jose 19 8 5 6 22 20 1.16 1.05 1.53 29 2 Seattle 21 8 5 8 23 25 1.10 1.19 1.38 29 -2 Colorado 20 7 7 6 22 21 1.10 1.05 1.40 28 1 Toronto FC 20 7 5 8 22 25 1.10 1.25 1.30 26 -3 Chicago 18 6 6 6 26 26 1.44 1.44 1.33 24 0 Kansas City 20 6 5 9 19 23 0.95 1.15 1.15 23 -4 Houston 21 6 5 10 27 33 1.29 1.57 1.10 23 -6 New England 20 6 3 11 20 33 1.00 1.65 1.05 21 -13 Chivas USA 20 5 4 11 22 26 1.10 1.30 0.95 19 -4 Philadelphia 20 4 5 11 23 36 1.15 1.80 0.85 17 -13 DC United 21 4 3 14 15 35 0.71 1.67 0.71 15 -20 Well, we’re now in the stretch run for the playoffs and the Supporters’ Shield. Dallas could put themselves into the thick of it with a win over Columbus next week. San Jose could solidify its playoff position by winning its game in hand. They next play RBNY. Chicago seems to be in the best position to bump a team out of the playoffs as it has 2(or 3) games in hand over the teams that are ahead of them. They meet Seattle next weekend, with Seattle coming off a midweek Champions League match. Alas, my Philadelphia Union, on the heels of their loss in DC and taking only 3 points from their last 4 home matches will not duplicate expansion Seattle of last year by making the playoffs. By the way, did you notice there were no draws this week.
Streaking
- RSL are unbeaten in their last 21 regular season home games.
- Dallas are unbeaten in their last 11 games.
- Dallas are also unbeaten in their last 9 road games.
- Colorado are unbeaten in their last 6 home games.
MLS Throw Ins
- LA is the only club to have earned more than 50% of its points on the road.
- There have been 40 draws compared to 50 in ’09 thru the first 162 matches.
- There have been 98 clean sheets in the first 162 matches, counting scoreless draws as 2.
- Through 162 games: goal scoring is down around 5.5% from 2009, 2.43 vs 2.57.
- RSL has lost only twice in its last 40 home matches. They lost only once in ’08 and ’09, a feat matched by Houston.
- DC United have yielded 14 goals in the last 15 minutes.
- Dallas have not given up more than 1 goal since April 22.
- San Jose has gone from one the worst allowing late goals in ’09 to the stingiest in ’10(as a percentage of total goals allowed).
N.A. SuperLiga
The participants in the 2010 N.A. SuperLiga and their respective finishes in the last completed season are …
MLS FMF Houston 3 UNAM Pumas 4 Chicago 5 Monarchas Morelia 7 Chivas USA 6 Pachuca 8 New England 7 Puebla 13 N.A. SuperLiga Group A W D L Pts GD Houston 2 1 0 7 2 Puebla 2 0 1 6 2 Chivas USA 1 1 1 4 0 Pachuca 0 0 3 0 -5 Group B W D L Pts GD New England 3 0 0 9 3 Monarchas Morelia 1 1 1 4 3 Chicago 1 0 2 3 -4 UNAM Pumas 0 1 2 1 -2 N.A. SuperLiga Semifinals New England(1)(5) v Puebla(1)(3) Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA Wed, Aug 4 Houston(0) v Morelia(1) Robertson Stadium, Houston, TX Thu, Aug 5 SuperLiga after Semifinals Total Game Dates Average 2007 234,751 14 16,768 2008 186,148 14 13,296 2009 86,948 11 7,904 2010 118,298 12 9,858 3 Doubleheaders in 2009 – 2 in 2010 New England will attempt to win its 2nd SuperLiga title on Sept 1 at Gillette Stadium.
A good showing for MLS as the group phase got underway. The only loss was suffered by Seattle, the only team that was on the road.
- Aug 17 — Toronto 2 Cruz Azul 1
- Aug 18 — Columbus 1 Municipal 0
- Aug 18 — Real Salt Lake 2 Arabe Unido 1
- Aug 19 — Marathón 2 Seattle 1
Group play continues this week. The matches with MLS teams are(home team listed first) …
- Aug 24 – Arabe Unido v Toronto
- Aug 24 – Santos Laguna v Columbus
- Aug 25 – Cruz Azul v Real Salt Lake
- Aug 25 – Seattle v Monterrey
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Thanks for the attendance. MLS shys away from this stat. This is the most interesting stat I look at. Is the sport growing…well with out Seattle I would say no….
Big drop seen this year
May be I read this all wrong but the number of people at the gate are up. Key markets are doing well in NY, LAG, and Chicago which are up over last year. Peter points out how well KC and SJ are doing with limited capacity stadiums and new ones are on line. Everyone expects that the new teams next season will play to big crowds and Philly has been good if not completely sold out this year.
Is it any surprise that teams not performing on the field are not drawing well? Think what effect the DP’s been available in Chicago and NY will do to next years season tickets sales. I’m already to slap down cash for my next years tickets for the Fire.
The playoffs are assured to have NY and LA and Peter points out Chicago is looking to hold the cards to make the playoffs. So, there are those who will just not give MLS a break either on stadium attendance or tv ratings but things are looking up.
Keep in mind the economy is a mess. Given that, I think the numbers are holding their own…
There is some shifting, but like I have posted many times, numbers are not up outside of Seattle, which had limited the capacity last year. ( they are limiting it this year too, but unlike last year, I think they are right were it should be ).
As the rest of the league catches up in number of home games the number will equal the expansion in Seattle. I am not bragging on Seattle or ripping on MLS.
Just presenting the facts. Bizzarre. I just wonder when/if people realize that MLS is a pretty dang good league and even if you don’t believe that it is VERY entertaining to follow.
Bookmakers:
Don’t know what you mean by big drop.
Charles:
Without Philly and Seattle, this year’s average is 14,734, last year without Seattle(and for the full season) the average was 14,976. As only 4 of the remaining 14 teams are down, we can look at Chivas USA and New England(down more than 2,000 each) as the reason.
I’m just saying that I’d rather hang my hat on the 10 teams that are up, 5 or 6 of which are up significantly.
Looking ahead, San Jose(and overall) will take a big hit for their next home game. It will be compared to last year’s doubleheader(Barcelona v Chivas de Guadalajara) which drew over 61,000.
Three teams have little upward potential this year, Toronto, Kansas City and San Jose.
Just look at the numbers.
I am in a hurry, so I am approximating, but Seattle has played about 1 extra game versus the average team, or about 20k more fans.
20k/162 = 123 fans, so now the increase is down to about 560 per game over last year.
Seattle expanded their stadium 6,000 people this year or for the other 10 games 60k fans, in other words 369 fans. Leaving an increase of about 200 fans per game away from that.
I wish it were not true. I have been following soccer attendance in the US since the 70s. I want it to become big time. It is not yet. Should be, has been in certain places and times but it isn’t overall.
I’m going to summarize what I posted in another thread so sorry for the redundancy, but MLS’s average attendance number for this season (based on the numbers given from this site) is only 425 less than the 2009-2010 NHL and only 552 less than the 2009-2010 NBA attendance average (based on the attendance numbers for ESPN, which does not count playoffs). Seattle and Toronto draw more fans than the top NBA team, Seattle more than the top NHL team. If you go down the list the top 5 MLS teams average more fans than the top 5 NBA or NHL teams. After that there is a bit of a drop off, but that’s not bad considering both the NBA and NHL have been ingrained into the American public for 70 or so years and MLS has only been here for the past 16 or so.
Meant to add this but I posted too soon, if you remove Seattle (whose 36K is high) the 2-6 MLS attendance averages is less than 500 people away from the 1-5 of the NBA and NHL.
NHL and NBA teams play 40 home game. MLS play, what, 20? Comparing apples to oranges. Plus, NBA and NHL tickets are more expensive than MLS.
If MLS were to have the same pricing structure as the NHL and NBA and double the amount of games, how do you think attendance would do? I bet season ticket sales would tank.
Rick,
I agree about the apples and oranges, which is why I don’t indulge in those kinds of comparisons.
While NBA and NHL play nearly triple the home games, the arenas’ capacity is similar to MLS. Then you have NFL with roughly half the home games and double or triple capacities.
I do think however, that in your scenario, it isn’t the season tickets that would suffer as much as the walk up buyers. Just my opinion.
Comparing apples to oranges would be if I were to try to compare the total home attendance of all MLS games to the average of NBA and NHL games. Yes, the total number of people at NBA and NHL games would dwarf MLS if only because there are tripple the amount of games in an NHL and NBA schedule. I compared apples to apples based on comparing the average attendance to the average attendance. Until the prices of MLS tickets go up we can only hypothesize what would happen to ticket sales.
However, there are cheaper options than seeing an MLS game, there are even cheaper sports options (minor league baserball, American Hockey League, Arena Football). But when you consider how people are saying that the sport is not popular in the US, those numbers are pretty good.
Rick hit is right on the head. Ticket prices completely different ball park and less than 1/2 of the games of both leagues.
Sounders are outdrawing the Mariners too, per game, except the Mariners can afford a payroll of $100 million plus.
Mariners will draw about 1/2 of what ALL of MLS does….and they stink.
The attendance issue is more complicated than just the raw numbers, and is probably worthy of a post on its own, but I want to point out one significant issue with which MLS must contend. Here in LA we have the Lakers, which draw 19,000 per game, which is the Staples Center capacity. I am just guessing, but I would think that 20-30% of those seats (possibly more) are owned by businesses, not individuals, who entertain clients at Lakers games. Honestly, I don’t know a single person who has ever bought a Laker ticket. Everyone I know who goes to a Laker games has gotten their tickets “through work.” The majority of Lakers games are on weekday evenings and the crowd that goes there is an after-work crowd. Soccer is different. The Galaxy put about as many butts in the seats as the Lakers do, but all but a few of those butts shelled out their own money for the tickets or went with someone who did. Galaxy tickets are probably too obscure to be used as a client-entertainment vehicle, so the Galaxy are fully dependent on fans who are willing to pay their own way. This is a ticket-sale barrier with which the MLS must contend and is one of the main reasons why the Big Three sports (MLB, NBA, NFL) really are leagues apart.
All that being said, that a Laker-sized crowd forks over their own money to see the Galaxy play is no small feat.
Ticket prices between the Lakers and the Galaxy aren’t even close to being the same. Double the amount of games the Galaxy play and price their tickets the same as the Lakers and the stadium would turn into a ghost town.
Yes, but virtually every team in sports would turn into a ghost town too.
What are your points Charles & Rick. I completely understand what Abram what trying to communicate.
He is just comparing and trying to paint the picture that the league is looking up and that is exciting. And while you guys quickly throw out Seattle and Philly’s success, they are both part of the league as Portland, Vancouver and Montreal will be in the coming years. Their success is in large part due to the foundation laid by the original franchises and the struggles they have gone through.
Bottomline…as long as this league survives it will continue to make new traditions and build on its history which is now at the point where these Academy products coming up have always had a professional league to follow here in the states unlike a lot of us older bloggers:( I’m not sure what the max number may be but if this league can make it for half a century or longer than you see healthy season ticket and attendance numbers just like the other major sports in this country. Probably not as high but profitable nonetheless.
There will probably always be a payroll discrepancy but I’d be willing to bet the other top leagues wish they could have a lower salary structure that wasn’t so out of whack with players making so much that parity is nearly impossible.