Well I have put this off as long as I can. But alas here it is the 2nd to last update, the last with actual regular season matches left to be played. That means another season has come and gone, and the offseason doldrums are nearly upon us, well after a month of scintillating playoff action anyways. Remember in this thread we discuss the: (AAQ = Attendance Analysis Quotient. This figure is an overall attendance assessment, calculated from the weighted values of average attendance, median attendance, <10K percentage and >20K percentage. A lower figure represents a better attendance performance.) This is a slight change from Andy's old formula which used simple ordinal values and provided a full ranking point separation for two numbers that may have been within a percentage. This ordinal system did not allow for fine differences to be seen, and may have painted a somewhat skewed view of the numbers (though to be honest there is not much difference in the two end of season sets). The formula to find the weighted value for each column is: Take the annual value and subtract it from the Max value for it's column. Then take that result and divide it by the (Max-Min) for its column. For example, for the average column 17869 is the max 13756 is the min 4113 is the difference To calculate the derived value for 2010 Subtract 16675 from 17869 to get 1194. Divide 1194 by 4113 then mulitply by 100* to get 29 *Note that this step is new as some people thought whole numbers would be easier to read. MLS Attendance is based on tickets distributed not tickets scanned. Therefore if a team sells or distributes X number of tickets, then X is the attendance for that match. Even if 0 people showed up for whatever reason, X would still be the official attendance. There are a number of reasons actual attendance may be lower or higher than the announced.
Last Week: Disappointing numbers from Toronto and Chivas, but then again both have had disappointing on field results. So ultimately it was a bit predictable. New Englands two game surge actually put them just over 14k average for the year, so it goes down as an improvement. Will find out how they did against the median when I put together the team centric AAQs. Home Team Attendance Seattle 38356 Toronto 16151 Red Bull NY 25219 DC United 19647 New England 25534 Houston 22039 Chivas USA 11499 San Jose 10744 Vancouver 21000 Seattle 38755 Total 228944 Average 22894 This Week: Everyone who failed to host last will do so this week, and then on to the playoffs.
2011 Games Played: 306 Total Attnd: 5,467,880 Average Attnd: 17,869 Median Attnd: 17,639 Median-33%: 11,765 Median+33%: 23,530 <MED-33%: 56 / 18.3% >MED+33%: 36 / 11.8% Average %CAP: 81.0% Median %CAP: 85.7% Games <70%: 86 / 28.1% Games >90%: 139 / 45.4% 2012 Games Played: 313 Total Attnd: 5,880,033 Average Attnd: 18,786 Median Attnd: 18,302 Median-33%: 12,207 Median+33%: 24,415 <MED-33%: 53 / 16.9% >MED+33%: 30 / 9.6% Average %CAP: 85.3% Median %CAP: 89.6% Games <70%: 68/ 21.7% Games >90%: 154 / 49.2% NOTES 1. For information regarding 2011 stadium capacities go HERE. 2. 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) 3. 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); SJE 6/30 (50,000); SSFC 8/5 (67,000); SSFC 8/18 (67,000); SSFC 10/7 (67,000) 4. Some listed capacities are "seated only" and teams may have sold/had SRO attendance over this amount, thus putting the %CAP over 100% for certain games. For calculating the average and median %CAP for all games these 100%+ numbers were used as is.
Season Stats *new*: Okay so a few things barring something catastrophic this week, we will top 6 million as was predeicted some time ago. We will have >=50k equal to <10k, which is astounding. We might reach 33% in >=20k, but will be close to that regardless. Simply put this season has been incredible from an attendance stand point. Season Stats Totals Thresholds Count Percent Games Played 313 Count >=50000 6 1.9% Total 5880033 Count >=30000 20 6.4% Average 18786 Count >=20000 101 32.3% Median 18302 Count >=15000 218 69.6% Maximum 66452 Count <10000 6 1.9% Minimum 6149 Count <7500 1 0.3% S. Deviation 8321 Count <5000 0 0.0%
AAQ Data: Here we of course have the amazing data we have been looking at week in and week out. Quite impressive to think of where things stood just a decade ago, or really even as recent as the expansion year of RSL and CUSA. AAAQ Historical Average Median <10k >20k Avg Pts Med Pts <10k Pts >20k Pts AAAQ Pts AAAQ Rnk Date 1996 17410 15093 21.9% 26.3% 11 44 57 20 132 5 9/22 1997 14606 12733 25.0% 16.3% 79 85 67 78 310 13 9/28 1998 14312 11871 26.6% 16.1% 86 100 73 79 338 14 9/27 1999 14282 12973 32.3% 15.1% 87 81 93 85 346 15 10/10 2000 13756 12690 34.4% 12.5% 100 86 100 100 386 16 9/9 2001 14961 13431 26.6% 17.7% 71 73 73 70 286 11 9/9 2002 15821 14108 17.1% 18.6% 50 61 40 65 215 7 9/22 2003 14900 13719 23.3% 18.0% 72 68 61 68 270 10 10/26 2004 15549 13223 24.7% 25.3% 56 77 66 26 225 8 10/17 2005 15112 12619 27.1% 17.7% 67 87 75 70 298 12 10/16 2006 15426 14113 19.3% 18.2% 59 61 48 67 235 9 10/15 2007 16767 15353 8.2% 29.7% 27 40 9 0 75 2 10/21 2008 16460 15188 11.0% 24.8% 34 42 19 28 124 4 10/26 2009 16037 14686 14.7% 20.9% 45 51 32 51 178 6 10/25 2010 16675 15332 7.5% 22.5% 29 40 7 42 117 3 10/16 2011 17869 17639 5.6% 28.1% 0 0 0 9 9 1 10/23 Current Average Median <10k >20k Avg Pts Med Pts <10k Pts >20k Pts AAAQ Pts AAAQ Rnk Date 1996 17279 14722 22.6% 25.8% 29 54 62 32 176 6 9/19 1997 14508 12694 25.2% 15.5% 83 84 69 82 318 14 9/26 1998 14233 11625 26.9% 15.6% 88 100 74 81 344 16 9/24 1999 14292 12865 32.3% 15.1% 87 81 90 84 343 15 10/6 2000 13609 12338 35.5% 11.8% 100 89 100 100 389 17 9/6 2001 14935 13391 26.1% 17.0% 74 74 72 75 295 12 9/7 2002 15642 13977 17.6% 16.9% 61 65 47 75 247 9 9/19 2003 14884 13715 23.4% 18.6% 75 69 64 67 275 11 10/19 2004 15581 13271 25.5% 25.5% 62 75 70 33 241 8 10/9 2005 15006 12547 28.0% 17.2% 73 86 78 74 311 13 10/8 2006 15270 13829 19.9% 18.3% 68 67 54 68 257 10 10/7 2007 16680 15059 8.5% 28.6% 41 49 20 18 127 3 10/18 2008 16430 15038 11.3% 25.1% 46 49 28 35 157 5 10/19 2009 15901 14629 15.1% 20.2% 56 55 39 59 209 7 10/22 2010 16621 15115 7.8% 22.4% 42 48 18 48 155 4 10/20 2011 17792 17456 5.7% 26.7% 19 13 11 27 70 2 10/16 2012 18786 18302 1.9% 32.3% 0 0 0 0 0 1 10/21
Comparison To Last Season and All-Time: So New England based on the strength of two solid matches to end the season, clears 14k in average for the first time since 2008, however the median shows that things weren't quite that rosy as it was their lowest median in the last 3 years, though not drastically so. Chivas meanwhile will bring up the rear. Team Played Current Last Diff Alltime Diff Chicago 16 16183 13901 16.4% 15529 4.2% Chivas USA 17 13056 14830 -12.0% 15863 -17.7% Colorado 16 15157 14749 2.8% 13971 8.5% Columbus 16 14318 11974 19.6% 15238 -6.0% DC United 17 13846 15196 -8.9% 17194 -19.5% FC Dallas 16 14099 13026 8.2% 12203 15.5% Houston 17 20946 17694 18.4% 17327 20.9% Los Angeles 16 22895 23106 -0.9% 22067 3.8% Montréal 16 22944 0 0.0% 0 0.0% New England 17 14001 13222 5.9% 15610 -10.3% Philadelphia 16 18023 18201 -1.0% 18724 -3.7% Portland 16 20438 18733 9.1% 18827 8.6% Red Bull NY 17 18281 19691 -7.2% 17159 6.5% Real Salt Lake 16 18998 17420 9.1% 16828 12.9% San Jose 17 13293 11858 12.1% 12820 3.7% Seattle 17 43104 38495 12.0% 35329 22.0% Sporting KC 16 19403 17678 9.8% 11386 70.4% Toronto FC 17 18155 20267 -10.4% 20264 -10.4% Vancouver 17 19475 20412 -4.6% 20412 -4.6% Overall - 18786 17792 5.6% 15739 19.4% No milestones to report that I recall. Will double check later.
>50k Seattle v Vancouver Seattle v LA Seattle v Portland San Jose v LA Montreal v LA? Montreal v Toronto?
When was the last time -- if ever -- that every team in the league averaged at least 13,000 per game?
Never. In fact, no other season has had every team average over 12,000 per game (assuming Wikipedia is accurate).
Study in Portuguese comparing attendances and capacity around the world of the top 100 attended teams. "Why so many empty stadiums" http://www.pluriconsultoria.com.br/uploads/relatorios/os 100 times de maior publico.pdf Found courtesy of a tweet by maofootball. Copy/paste of select translated text is too laborious for my time right now.
Lol, according to that report, Bolton Wanderers is a club in the US Also curious how they determined that CenturyLink's capacity is 40,000. Not sure I would hire these people as consultants
Wow... Seattle would be 25th on that list, just behind Liverpool and just ahead of PSG. Not sure where they'd be on a 2012 list. How is Montreal on there at 30,000 if the list is from 2011? That's odd. Capacity of Stade Saputo is listed at 31,500.
18,553 at Philly 19,998 at Montreal (don't you just hate attendances like this, couldn't they find 2 more people?)
Was Chivago's sellout the emptiest looking sellout of the year, or does that honor go to one of Houston's sellouts?
Given that it finished after Colorado, the RSL game has the distinction of having the 6,000,000th fan! Season should end around 6,072,000
Major League Soccer Soccer.com's FCD writer, Daniel Robertson, tweeted that there were 15,805 in Frisco tonight.