2014 attendance discussion

....wow, so as anyone seen ANY attendance numbers for the three games tonight so far? What's taking the teams so long?

 

On the SkyBlue broadcast, they announced the attendance. I don't remember the exact number, but it was just short of 3,000. Something like 2,987.

 

I believe that's better than any attendance they had last year.

 

Well, better than last year! \o/

 

Seems like there were more Thorns fans than SBFC

 

Are any of those teams playing in the W-League or is it just exhibitions. Getting to play real games in the W-League would be great.

 

Not much for the Thorns, just a lot of Morgan fans.

 

Reign Reserves (officially the Issaquah SC) are in WPSL.
Red Stars Reserves are in WPSL
Breakers Reserves are in WPSL
Sky Blue Reserves are independent
Spirit Reserves are in W-League
I'm not 100% sure if KC has reserves, I've heard hints of them, but they'd be independent

 

There were a lot of Thorns jerseys. A couple families had kids split 50-50 between the teams.

 

Heard there would be reserve teams in 2014. Didn't realize that they were playing in actually leagues and getting real matches. Huge step up from last year.

 

Issaquah SC and Spirit Reserves were already playing last year. As were the KC Reserves, who occasionally played college teams (I'm just not sure if they're still playing this year).

 

Why aren't there many Brazilians in the league? The WPS was filled with them (Marta, Rosana, Erika, Cristiane, Francielle, Formiga, Sissi, and probably a couple others) I'm not sure some are even playing for clubs like Erika and Francielle. Imagine they're good enough to start on some of these teams.

 

Sky Blue kind of used NJ Wildcats as a reserve team last year. Rachel Bret and others were back and forth between those teams last year.

 

How many Brazilians were truly successful in WPS? Marta, Formiga, and possibly Rosana?

 

http://chicagoredstars.com/chicago-red-stars-defeat-western-new-york-flash-1-0-in-season-opener/
CHI quoting an attendance of 15,743. I'm wondering if that's just a repeat of the Fire attendance, or if it's really that 15k people stayed for the Red Stars game.

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http://www.skybluefc.com/home/803128.html
Sky Blue's report doesn't give an attendance number.... Makes me worry.

 

Thanks, I don't have a Twitter account so sometimes I'm a bit slow on Tweeted news. Sounds like the quoted number is 2983.

 

BTW:
15,743 is the exact number also quoted in the Fire game report - http://www.chicago-fire.com/news/2014/04/match-recap-chicago-fire-1-new-england-revolution-1

 

Washington's attendance looked pretty pathetic.

 

http://nwslsoccer.com/home/803121.html
Interestingly, NWSL is using the 15k figure for the CHI game.
NJ's attendance also verified officially.

http://nwslsoccer.com/home/803120.html
DC's attendance - 2577. Better than the home opener, but still worse than last year.

 

WOW, it didn't look like they had anywhere near 2,577 tonight.

If the Spirit can average 3,000 this year, I'll take it. That's worse than last year, but after last year's performance, you can't expect this team to have that kind of attendance again, until they are in the "serious" playoff chase.

Which is why this league still needs to retain the playoffs.
Anyone that thinks they should do away with the playoffs entirely, is completely naive.

 

Yep, 2,983 is what's reported on the Thorns/Timbers website.

 

My model (ratio) for minimum attendance standards (for sustainability) in this league is simple.
An avg. attendance of 1 fan (per home game) for every $100 the (annual) salary cap is.

This means if the salary cap is $200,000, then a team needs to average a minimum of 2,000 fans per game.
If they were to raise the salary cap to $250,000, then a team needs to average a minimum of 2,500 fans.

I'm hoping the league feels comfortable with raising the salary cap to $250,000 soon.

 

I expected them to report the Fire attendance since I can't think of any other way the Red Stars could report how many stayed for their game.