I was saying the Mod's gone off leash here, by trying to start shit with me. And I think people pushing flimsy excuses is okay. But that's definitely "baiting" a debate. And I'm having that debate. But then don't throw stones my way.
Not that flimsy actually, considering the weather effect on attendance was predicted ahead of time. The local college basketball conflict didn't happen until the night before, so it was hard to predict that, but it shouldn't be a shock.
Did I say anything about you questioning the 18k number? Didn't think so. What I did address was the rest of the drivel in your post. But hey way to move the goal posts on your argument. Pretty sure that I have not done anything to stymie debate, what I have done is provided reality checks in both cases where wild inaccuracies or strawmen were setup to foster an argument. As for that week 1 deleted post.... Nice redirect, it was tripe from a sock that has since been banned, so yeah definitely no reason to delete that.
I still don't really buy it. When the weather is forecast to be good and turns bad, we hear the same weather related excuse the other way. Anyways, I wasn't trying to re-open it. I'm sure we'll have the same discussion for some team next week.
I didn't question the 18K number. I was questioning why people felt the need to make an excuse for it. It's not like LA is expected to draw 25K every week. Their attendance has been declining. That's not disingenuous. It's disingenuous to blame it on the weather, when it's really a somewhat average crowd for the week after a sellout.
Except their numbers have not been declining. They had a one week decline. They had declining years in 2009-2010 when they sucked, or were recovering from suckiness. Since then they have trended up again. I have actually gone back and examined their historic 2nd home game averages, and there has been dramatic decline in almost every season. So the 2nd game effect is really not unexpected. Add to that the fact that LA was playing their 3rd home match in 7 days, and have a relatively small season ticket base, relying much heavkier on the 'walk-up' crowd and it is easy to see that there were contributing factors. To out and out disregard those is a bit silly, it is also a bit silly to suggest they are the only factors. As for the flip side of the weather argument I tend to agree if the weather was predicted to be good and then turns crap the day before, then weather probably has nothing to do with a less than expected turnout. My main beef was your arguments about LA no longer moving the numbers as significantly as before, and then trying to pin that on a non-existant decline. When I suspect you know the real reasons (more teams, more games, and higher average and median.)
Should have been clearer in my meaning, it was not my intent to suggest that you questioned the validity of the number, rather that you were questioning why they would 'only' draw 18k to a game. I have no issues with you or anyone else questioning why they would only draw 18k. As I tried explaining to the banned poster, I would take issue with you questioning why the number was what it was, and then completely disregarding every reason that those numbers may have been what they were.
People feel the need to explain every deviation from any average anywhere. Listen to NPR when they report the daily market movement. They can't ever just say that the market is down 15 points -- they have to give some reason for it. Even though they can't actually say that a devolution of the talks regarding sanctions against North Craklackistan had any net effect on trading, it doesn't stop them from reporting it. There's no reason to be surprised by it. It's human nature.
Sorry for the late response, but had to interject. It's the biggest ever club game, or game involving a local team. The record (and Canadian record) will probably hold for a long time: 71,617 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_at_the_1976_Summer_Olympics#Final [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2BbCcvHQa8"]1976 (Jully 31) East Germany 3-Poland 1 (Olympics).avi - YouTube[/ame]
All I know is that I have been to 2 matches this year.....both involved only N.A. Club teams (ie.no touring team from someone's "old country")....neither involved anyone's "natural" rival......both were fun....both had enthusiastic crowds........average attendance is a little over 53k! For a guy who has spent far too many days in far too empty stadiums.......this is good!