2012 MLS Attendance Thread

Discussion in 'New England Revolution' started by patfan1, Apr 24, 2012.

  1. patfan1

    patfan1 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 19, 1999
    Nashua, NH
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  2. NFLPatriot

    NFLPatriot Member+

    Jun 25, 2002
    Foxboro, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Interesting that LA has an SSS, 3 DPs and a new scudetto on their unis, and yet attendance is down.
     
  3. Jon Martin

    Jon Martin Member+

    Apr 25, 2000
    SE Mass
    Well, you know Beckham is sooooo last year.
     
  4. RevsLiverpool

    RevsLiverpool Member+

    Nov 12, 2005
    Boston
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  5. Crooked

    Crooked Member+

    May 1, 2005
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    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.
     
  6. RevsLiverpool

    RevsLiverpool Member+

    Nov 12, 2005
    Boston
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  7. Jeremy Goodwin

    Jeremy Goodwin Member+

    SSC Napoli
    Feb 16, 1999
    Club:
    Montreal Impact
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  8. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  9. DREWWW

    DREWWW Member

    Jan 24, 2006
    H2Otown, Masachewsez
    Think how bad things would be for the Revs attendance wise if it wasn't for the "Marta affect" :(
     
  10. NFLPatriot

    NFLPatriot Member+

    Jun 25, 2002
    Foxboro, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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]
    
     
    MLSFan123 repped this.
  11. Achowat

    Achowat Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Revere, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  12. Kraft Out

    Kraft Out Member+

    Aug 2, 2010
    Boston
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    lol nice to see the Revs staying consistent in their attempts at sucking
     
  13. rkupp

    rkupp Member+

    Jan 3, 2001
    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.
     
  14. NFLPatriot

    NFLPatriot Member+

    Jun 25, 2002
    Foxboro, MA
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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%.
     
  15. MLSFan123

    MLSFan123 Member+

    Mar 21, 2011
    Boston Area
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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)
     
  16. Kraft Out

    Kraft Out Member+

    Aug 2, 2010
    Boston
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Actually, it shows me that the worst owners in the league have the least supported teams pretty much year in and year out.
     
  17. dncm

    dncm Member+

    Apr 22, 2003
    Boston
    Revs with lowest attendance so far this weekend with Chivas right above them.
     
  18. patfan1

    patfan1 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 19, 1999
    Nashua, NH
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     
  19. rkupp

    rkupp Member+

    Jan 3, 2001
    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!
     
  20. CottageRev

    CottageRev Member+

    Jun 13, 2010
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    I'm pretty sure there were more people in the stands during the Revs game than the Canada/Brazil womens' game.
     
  21. patfan1

    patfan1 Moderator
    Staff Member

    Aug 19, 1999
    Nashua, NH
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Final numbers ... or close to them anyway.
     
  22. Kraft Out

    Kraft Out Member+

    Aug 2, 2010
    Boston
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    There is a shocker. Revs near the bottom and and nearly 25% lower than the league average. Well done boys!!!!
     
  23. Kraft Out

    Kraft Out Member+

    Aug 2, 2010
    Boston
    Club:
    New England Revolution
    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.
     
  24. rkupp

    rkupp Member+

    Jan 3, 2001
    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.
     
  25. RevsLiverpool

    RevsLiverpool Member+

    Nov 12, 2005
    Boston
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    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.
     

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