Average Attendance for Soccer League From Around the World

MLS must rank at least 10th or 11th in attendance when compared to other soccer leagues. Not bad at all.

I was quite surprised by this as well. In fact I thought attendances would be much higher throught most of Europe.

The New York Metro Area is not the largest in the World. Tokyo has 31 million and Mexico City has 22 million. I think when you compare average sports attendences you must take into account in no order:

1. Total average attendence of all sports events a week for the entire year so for New York it would be: Giants, Jets, Nets, Knicks, Yankees, Mets, Devils, Rangers, Islanders, Metrostars, All college sports, All High school sports, The pro Lacrosse teams in the Area? and all special events. I'd be willing to take out High school sports but basketball and football are still big time. By my calculations New York averages around 244,000 people a week for just pro sports events. For Manchester my rough estimate is 63,000. For London 100,000 is my estimate.

2. Average ticket prices. For fairly expensive New York I calculated 52 dollars a ticket. For fairly expensive Manchester United average ticket price is 42 dollars. Arsenal is 46 dollars

3. Total population. New York proper 11,000,000. Manchester 430,000. London is 7,000,000.

US Census estimates, July 1999:

New York City proper: 7,428,162
Billings, MT: 92,988

UK Census, 2001:

London: 7,185,000
Manchester: 392,819

Most populous urban areas, World Gazeteer 2003:

1....Tokyo Japan..............31.1 million
2....Mexico City Mexico.......21.2 million
3....New York USA.............21.2 million
4....Seoul South Korea........20.0 million
5....São Paulo Brazil.........18.8 million
6....Jakarta Indonesia........17.9 million
7....Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto Japan...17.6 million
8....Delhi India..............17.0 million
9....Mumbai (Bombay) India....17.0 million
10...Los Angeles USA..........16.4 million

Gonna be higher than that for London:

Premiership, D1, D2, D3, Conference, Non-league games would all count. So would all rugby, basketball, hockey, blah blah blah blah.

How's the ice hockey doing in Inger-Land and London ?

This is what I have. Of course MLS only has 10 teams and some other leagues have 18/20 teams which brings their average down.

Ger 36k
eng 34k
spa 28k
ita 26k
mex 22k
fra 20k
arg 18k
hol 18k
japan 16k
MLS 15k

I just calculated the top pro teams in New York, there are 10, not college and high school which are equivilent to the D1, D2, etc.... But I would contend that the number of people who attend high school and college sporting events a week for the year would add at least another 150,000 people a week. So for London if there are 8 teams which average the EPL average of 34,000 and have 30 home games a year, the people going to a sporting event a week in London is 157,000.

The fact that MLS only has ten teams is not why they have a better attendence average than leagues with 18-20 teams. MLS is the fifth division American sports league and has to compete with 128 teams ahead of them. There are 280 million reasons why MLS has a higher attendence than other leagues.

The 11 pro London teams average 233,000 between them (if you count Watford as London). Non-league games + basketball + ice-hockey wouldn't take it that much past 250,000. I think there are only 3 pro rugby teams in London, and they only draw about 5000 each. With internationals, friendlies and cup final, Twickenham rubgy ground pulls in 78,000 six or seven times a year. Cricket? Assuming two full 5-day tests a year, that'd add no more than about 200,000 a year. County games and 1-day internationals might add another 100,000 to that figure.

most countries in europe only have a handful of cities with populations over a million. Even medium-sized countries like Holland have many clubs from towns like Alkmaar, with populations below 100,000. A town that size pulling in 7,500 is remarkable, even without other sports competing for support.

With the exception of Russia, all the countries that MLS beats on average have a total population lower than the metro area of many MLS cities.

Out of interest, what countries in particular were lower than you thought they'd be, and just how high did you imagine they'd be?

And now this: Brazilian football clubs shun the poor

Attendance statistics German Bundesliga season 2003/04:

http://www.schwatzgelb.com/fanservice/attendances0304.htm

(There is a diagram available at the bottom of the site. I don't know whether it works with other browsers than Iexplorer)

At the moment Germany's Bundesliga has the highest average attendance in the world regarding football (soccer). It is 36.558 but till 2006 some new stadiums will be completed and maybe an average of 40.000+ isn't out of reach. Also depends on which teams relegate and promote.


Germany's stadiums for World Cup 2006:

http://www.schwatzgelb.com/fanservice/stadiums.htm


p.s.: why isn't this thread in the "Statistics and Analysis "-forum?


jonam, http://www.schwatzgelb.com

That's always been and continues to be the biggest challenge of MLS. Not attracting new fans, but people who are already fans. If it's not English, Italian or Spanish (or Mexican), then tons of fans want nothing to do with it.

There are 11 professional football teams in Greater London, without counting Watford, which is in not in Greater London, but which some people would consider to be in the urban area. They are
: Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, Charlton (Premiership); West Ham, Crystal Palace, Millwall (Division 1); Queens Park Rangers, Brentford (Division 2); Leyton Orient (Division 3). There is also Wimbledon, which was a London club until 2 months ago when it moved to Milton Keynes.

The Premiership has lost its number 1 position among football leagues this year, due to the building program for Euro 2006 in Germany. In the long run, I expect it will regain it. There is more pent up demand here, as average attendance, at 95%, is higher than in any other leading European League. This is despite ticket prices being much higher than on the Continent. I think the price quoted for Arsenal earlier was misleading. The average price is more like $75. Arsenal and Chelsea are almost certainly the two most expensive football clubs in the World to attend, but the prices are still lower than some college American Football games.

I think it is more likely that the Chinese League will take over as the richest in the World one day than that MLS will. Does anyone know how football compares to other sports in popularity in China?

The population figures of c400,000 for Manchester quoted above are largely irrelevant. They are for the arbitarily drawn Manchester City Council area. The urban area has a population of about 2.3 million, in which there are seven professional football teams. Contrary to earlier comments, Manchester is comfortably in the top 30 urban areas in Europe, and would certainly get a franchise if Europe had a major league franchise system, even ignoring the existence of Manchester United. As for Manchester United itself, the size of its' home city is of little significance nowadays. It has fans all over the country, and would almost certainly sell out every home game even if Manchester residents were prohibited from attending.

A question was asked about ice hockey in London. The main team was called the London Knights. They played in the London Arena, which had a capacity of 10,000 but I should think attendances were a fraction of that. In any case, they have closed down as the Arena is being demolished. They may or may not start up again when the Millenium Dome has been converted into an arena. There is now a team called the London Racers, formerly the Harringey Racers. They play in an 1,100 capacity sports centre, so they can only be semi-pro at most. Ice hockey and basketball are virtually invisible in England, with next to zero mainstream press coverage. I'm a keen general sports fan, but I can't name a single player in either sport. Snooker and darts are both much more mainstream "sports" here than ice hockey or basketball.

Could someone please explain what Canadian Football is? Are the rules the same as American Football?

there are minor differences in rules and pitch size between American Football and Canadian Football, but they are essentially the same game.

Chinese League = richest in the World one day?
Highly unlikely due to the fact that the average citizen make about $2-3 dollar a day. Most Chinese live in poverty. Though the Chinese economy is growing, it is estimated that 10 years from now, it will be only 1/3 of Japan (right now 1/9). (Source: this Sunday seminar I seen on CSPAN). However, on the upside, China economy is growing and soccer is the #1 sport there.

MLS = richest league in the world one day?
As highly unlikely. Too much competition from other entranched sports. If MLS can become the NFL, then yes, MLS will be the richest soccer league in the world, but that a far far far way off and might never take place.
If MLS = NFL, then the TV contract each year would worth 1.7 billion dollars, and average attendance would be in the 65,000. If that is possible, then it is not unconceivable that most of the world top players will call MLS home one day.

I think that there is a fairly good chance that the World will last for more than another 10 years: I was certainly thinking further ahead than that. The Chinese economy is already the second largest in the world at purchasing power parity, according to the CIA World Factbook. It is quite likely that China will have a larger economy than the United States at market exchange rates before the century is out, so if football remains the number one sport in China, the Chinese football league will probably become the richest league in any sport.

Unless you understand American football you won't understand the differences, but these are the main ones.
Canadian football:
-has a fatter ball
-wider field
-1 extra player
-deeper endzone
-unlimited motion before the snap
-no fair catch
-point on missed field goals not run out of endzone
-the 'rouge'
-only 3 downs
This isn't an exhaustive list, but those are the main differences.

The key difference.. Means a much more pass oriented game than the US version.

Thanks. I only understand the first four of those points, but it sounds like the differences are somewhat less than those between rugby league and rugby union.

Hah, fat chance. We've already explained the differences between US and Canadian football. Nobody I've asked has ever been able to tell me the differences between rugby league and rugby union, including people who've played one or both.

Well, I'm not going to try to list the differences between the two rugby codes, as my knowledge of the finer points is fairly shaky, especially with league.

I have tried to put together lists of paying attendance at sports events in the UK (population 59.5m) and US (population 293m).

UK

Football
English League 28,000,000
English and Welsh non-league 2,000,000
European 1,500,000
Cups 3,000,000
International 1,250,000
Scottish domestic 5,000,000

American football
Scottish Claymores 53,557

Basketball
Men's 800,000

Rugby Union
Club 2,500,000
International 1,100,000

Rugby League
Club 2,000,000
International 75,000

Ice hockey 600,000

Cricket 2,000,000
All teams sports 49,878,557

Tennis 1,000,000
Horseracing 5,557,758
Eventing 1,000,000
Golf 1,250,000
Boxing 1,000,000
Motor Racing 1,000,000
Others 1,000,000
All pro sports 61,686,315

College Sports
All 100,000
All paying sports 61,786,315


USA

Football
MLS 2,200,000
Internationals 200,000

Baseball
Major league 69,000,000
Minor league 38,600,000

American Football
NFL 18,000,000
Arena 2,000,000

Basketball
Men's 16,000,000
Women's 2,500,000

Ice hockey 10,200,000

All team sports 158,700,000

Tennis 4,000,000
Horseracing 20,000,000
Eventing 2,500,000
Golf 8,000,000
Boxing 7,000,000
Motor Racing 10,000,000
Others 5,000,000
All pro sports 215,200,000

College Sports
American football 45,000,000
Men's basketball 30,000,000
Women's basketball 10,000,000
Others 15,000,000

High school sports (wild guess) 10,000,000

All paying sports 325,200,000

The accuracy of these figures is variable. I have had to multiply up from average attendances for most of the American professional sports apart from baseball. I've tried to exclude Canadian teams. I've never heard of the existence of any professional ice hockey or men's basketball leagues outside of the major leagues, so I haven't included any. Apart from the horseracing figure, which is precise, my UK figures for the individual sportsare based mainly on the attendance figures for some prominent events scaled up by impressionistic factors. The figures for US individual sports are based on my impressions of the relative prominence of each sport in the two countries, which may be wildly inaccurate.

Some of the main things I notice are:

- Attending live sport isn't really very popular, at little over 1 event per person per year in both countries. In most other parts of the World the attendance per capita figure would be much lower than this.

- The US only comes out ahead per capita due to the popularity of college sport there. The only paying college sport event which draws a large crowd in the UK is the Oxford v Cambridge rugby union match. The boat race is free.

- Baseball is still the most watched live sport in the US, even though American Football is said to have more fans.

- Cricket is probably only the 5th most attended sport in the UK, but it is still a clear second to football in mass media coverage.

- I understand that American Football players can't manage many games due to the physical nature of the game, and that the NFL is engaged in scarcity marketing, but I still don't understand why they take this to such an extreme. Why doesn't it add another couple of months to the extremely short season, and create 20 more teams? Is this prevented by the vested interests of the owners and the players union, or are there sound sporting reasons?

with the way it is going, there is no way China economy will match the US in 100 years.
I did a quick google and found a projection that by 2050, China GDP would be half of the US and the per capita (per individual) GDP would be a fifth. Base on the graph, the per capita GDP of the US will be around $48,000 and China is less than $9,000.
So basically, a citizen in the US will make 48,000 and Chinese citizen make 9,000. If a person makes 9,000 a year, I don't think that person would have a lot of money to spend on sports. http://www.marubeni.co.jp/research/eindex/0209/body.html

however, I do believe that in 100 years, China soccer league might be a powerful league, even more powerful than MLS because China do not have NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, golf or whatever and from its pop of 1.2 billions, there bound to be a few good players.

Right now, on average a Chinese makes less than $1,000 a year and an American makes about $25,000. There is no way that those two number will be equal in 100 years. But because of the population number, China will have the second biggest economy in 100 years even though Japan, Korea, Europe and many other countries will have a higher capita income. China, however, makes up by pure population number.