Starting up the 2012 Annual Attendance Thread. Through last weekend's games. This takes this year's average attendance in comparison with where team's ended up last year. Code: [I][U][COLOR="Red"]Team GP 2012 AVG 2011 AVG VAR[/COLOR][/U][/I] Montreal 2 41,016 N/A N/A Sounders 4 38,419 38,495 -76 Galaxy 4 22,233 23,335 -1,102 Portland 4 20,438 18,258 +2,180 TFC 4 19,186 20,267 -1,081 SKC 4 18,671 17,810 +861 RSL 4 18,554 17,594 +960 Vancouver 4 18,451 20,406 -1,955 Philadelphia 3 18,263 19,691 -1,428 Red Bulls 3 17,184 18,827 -1,643 Rapids 3 15,683 14,838 +845 FC Dallas 4 15,079 12,861 +2,218 Fire 2 14,282 14,274 +8 DC United 5 13,706 15,211 -1,505 Crew 3 13,397 12,185 +1,212 San Jose 4 13,267 11,818 +1,409 Chivas 4 12,422 14,830 -2,408 [COLOR="Blue"][B]Revs 2 11,657 13,222 -1,565[/b][/COLOR] Houston 0 N/A 17,694 N/A [B]MLS TOTALS 63 18,776 17,870 +906[/B] With 19.6% of the season now played, MLS' average attendance is up 5.07% from last year. The Revs attendance in comparison with the same point last season (10,014) is now up 16.41%. BTW, the person who had the theory that half the teams in the league would have an attendance figure like the Revs worst games last year, was completely wrong.
I can't believe Montreal is averaging 41k (granted, it's early) and Seattle is still averaging nearly 40k over the entire season. That, to me, is incredible. The Revs have certainly had a few high attendance anomalies over their history but have never averaged close to the 30k mark even in their "peak attendance" years in the 90s. (21k in '97 was their best average). Kudos to Seattle and Montreal for setting the MLS attendance bar high, long may it continue.
You can relax about Montreal. The Impact have played two games, one of which was a record high of nearly 60k, while the other was around 22k. Their average will probably be in the mid 20k range this season.
I'm relaxed, just pointing out it's a good start out of the gate for Montreal. 60k is a lot of people to watch soccer anywhere in the world. Even if the average ends up in the mid 20s that's higher than the Revs' best attendance year (21k in 1997). Sustaining nearly 40k puts the oft-cited 38k Revs fans that showed up for the last game of 1996 in context. It's great to see the game catching on (and sustaining) so well with the expansion franchises.
Which is about what you might expect as the potential high in the future. Two or three games a season at the Olympic, the rest at a low 20ks stadium. LA's "low" attendance is a technicality related to their lease restrictions on games happening certain nights while school is in session, they restrict stadium capacity those nights. It's a timing thing. If you have a baseball team that sells out every game, but the start of their season is all day games, you'll have a similar effect (many/most baseball stadiums remove capacity during day games, typically behind the pitching mound as seen from home plate). Capacity is just lower at venues some times versus others.
You are confusing the CCL with MLS play. The only time this attendance restriction affected LA this year was when they played Toronto in CCL. It has not affected them in MLS play. In fact over the years, I don't think the restriction has ever affected them in MLS regular season games. It has only affected them during the CCL and MLS playoffs. Since they know about the restriction, they simply schedule around it for the regular season. In case people are unaware, if the Gals play a home game during the week, during the college school year, the HDC capacity is capped at 7500. Obviously LA has never had this low of an attendance for an MLS regular season game. Last year in the playoffs, they had a game at home against NY that ran into the restriction. The team worked out a deal with the local college to run buses and shuttles to allow them to increase capacity to 15k for that game.
Just for fun, I put this chart together showing 2012 attendance as a percentage of stadium capacity (teams reported soccer capacity, not total). All figures based on Wikipedia, so take that for what it is worth. Code: [FONT=courier new]MLS Team 2012 Avg Capacity % Cap[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Montreal Impact 36,498 20,341 179.43[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]San Jose Earthquakes 11,668 10,300 113.28[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Sporting Kansas City 19,017 18,467 102.98[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Portland Timbers 20,438 20,323 100.57[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Seattle Sounders FC 38,627 38,500 100.33[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Houston Dynamo 22,039 22,000 100.18[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Philadelphia Union 18,313 18,500 98.99[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Real Salt Lake 18,344 20,008 91.68[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Vancouver Whitecaps FC 19,012 21,000 90.53[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Los Angeles Galaxy 23,197 27,000 85.91[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Toronto FC 19,022 23,000 82.70[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Colorado Rapids 14,658 18,086 81.05[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Chivas USA 13,856 18,800 73.70[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Chicago Fire 14,087 20,000 70.44[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]D.C. United 13,548 19,467 69.59[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]New York Red Bulls 16,204 25,189 64.33[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]Columbus Crew 12,658 20,145 62.83[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]FC Dallas 13,181 21,193 62.20[/FONT] [FONT=courier new]New England Revolution 11,598 22,385 51.81[/FONT]
I personally updated the Revs attendance based on the official reports on RevolutionSoccer.net, so that one should be trusted as much as you trust the "official version" of things.
Pretty clear divide between the new teams/teams w/new stadiums and the established teams (with LAGals being the main exception). The numbers also seem to show that the "new stadium" bounce isn't a permanent thing.
Of course, if Chivas used the same capacity as the Gals (who, you know, share the same stadium), they'd be down below the Revs at 51.31%.
This capacity information is tracked at a league level on the MLS NA board. I grabbed the following outlier information from that thread in case it affects your analysis at all, specifically the games played at different stadiums than the norm (of which throws the capacity numbers way off). Some of the wiki capacity numbers are wrong for soccer. The media guides are a better source of information. ============== Per 2012 MLS Team Media Guides the following are the standard capacities for each team's regular home stadium: CHI (20,000); CHV (18,800); COL (18,086); CLB (20,145); DCU (19,647); FCD (20,500); HOU (22,000); LAG (27,000); MTL (20,341); NER (20,000); NYR (25,000); PHI (18,500); POR (20,438); RSL (20,213); SJE (10,525); SEA (38,500); SKC (18,467); TFC (21,140); VAN (21,000) The following are capacity exceptions to the norms above: MON 3/17 (58,500); SJE 3/17 (41,915); MTL 4/7 (22,000); MTL 4/28 (22,000); MTL 5/12 (58,500); MTL 5/19 (22,000)
Actually, it shows me that the worst owners in the league have the least supported teams pretty much year in and year out.
Sorry for not updating this ... got bored with putting this together with our depressing numbers. Taken from the MLS boards, final numbers are not updated.
Looks like there are 3 categories of attendance: Mid teens: 8 teams (all in cities with 8+ years in MLS, including Revs) High teens to low 20's: 11 teams Seattle!
I'm pretty sure there were more people in the stands during the Revs game than the Canada/Brazil womens' game.
There is a shocker. Revs near the bottom and and nearly 25% lower than the league average. Well done boys!!!!
Except that the Revs are nearly 25% lower than a lot of those teams. Using the term "mid-teens" is a gross misrepresentation of the truth.
No they aren't - the bottom 8 range from 13,056 to 16,409, with a max spread of 1200+ (for Chicago; the rest are more bunched). And, since when isn't 14,000 mid-teens? I didn't say anywhere that the bottom group is "close" to the middle group - the implication is that the members of my bottom group have more in common with each other than the middle group. And Seattle is clearly in a [wonderful] world of their own.
Good call on Montreal attendance in the 20s. 22.7k is a good start to their MLS existence and better than the best revs average ever.