Different teams have different expectations. One thing you guys should know about Galaxy's good attendance - it is the results of extremely aggressive marketing. Phone calls, group sales, discounted tickets, and finally giveaways is how L.A. keeps filling the HDC. The playoffs don't really leave enough time for all that. I don't even know if they will be able to get too much more on Sunday then they did Thursday - just not enough time to get the typical Galaxy marketing machine going.
Apparently the NFL sidelines themselves are allowed to be a 4'' line rather than the usual two-foot(?) thick strip
You're quite the emotional rollercoaster on these attendance threads. Yes, we rule!!! Aaugh, we're doomed!!! There are extenuating circumstances. This is a new format. Take a deep breath and step away from the keyboard...the big picture is very, very positive and getting more so every year.
Like I've said before, you need a larger amount of teams making the playoffs to keep fan interest. Otherwise, too many teams have nothing to play for in September/October. That's why you need 10 teams....not because of the playoff gate you get from it.
Not sure I understand. If having more to play for is important for keeping fan interest in the regular season, then why is having more to play for not so important during the play-offs?
It's not that it isn't important, it is just that the short turn around on games is difficult for MLS teams. In a normal year, the first games for the 2/3 ranked teams would have better attendance than the knockout rounds because they have a few extra days and then the final game of the series would have near normal capacity, if not larger, due to the extra week for marketing.
Oh I understand. There are loads of factors. I just don't think having a lot to play for is, in say 2/3 of MLS cities anyway, as much a factor as is often stated here. (ie, in many MLS cities I think weather, day of the week, time elapsed since last game, and maybe other factors are bigger influences on attendance than the game's importance in the standings)
If it makes any of you guys feel better, ticket reps been working till midnight to keep up with demand for our game on Sunday. Should be sold out. Hell, I called all day yesterday and got a busy signal. Just left an e-mail and hoped I got a ticket somewhere in the stadium (eventually did! yey!) Sadly it's not like 06 (or was it 07?) where fans literally crashed the phone system. But I think the FO has upgraded their phone system since then too...
34,941 in Seattle With the loge seats tarped, they said capacity was 35k so I'm not sure if that number is a sellout of the available capacity or just real close.
Let's not split hairs and just call it sold out. Like in San Jose when they're a bit shy of their absolute maximum, sometimes people don't show up to find a ticket when it looks like a game is sold out in advance. It's silly to think they couldn't have sold ~100 more tickets if they knew they were available.
Not to mention, you're probably talking about scattered singles.. Not many people go to games alone..
Houston has always had tremendous playoff attendance. The only downside of the smaller stadium is that we won't be seeing 30k crowds for playoffs and Concacaf anymore.
Yeah I was thinking about this but, except maybe for our 1st game v Chivas in 06, this might be our lowest attended playoff game, sellout or no. I can't quite remember what that was (I want to say 22 and change0 but it'll be strange to have a packed house and not have 32k on hand.
I think these are all the Houston home playoff attendances 2006: 17,440 23,107 2007: 30,088 30,972 2008: 30,053 2009: 27,465 2011: 24,749
I think we will be lucky to see 18k. Scheduling across from NFL is bad enough. Scheduling across from a Texans home game is terrible. Then making it 2:30 where fans of both can watch Texans then switch over and follow the Dynamo second half as long as they stay in front of TV was idiotic.
Here's a link to a mailbag of one of cnnsi.s top one or two college football gurus, Stewart Mandel. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20...-playoffs-college-football-mailbag/index.html In the first question of the mailbag Stewart explains the concept that expanding a post-season or playoffs takes out some of the excitement of the regular season. Of course his conclusion is that that tradeoff will be worth it for college football. To me that makes sense because under the current college football system there is a 2 team playoff. That's too few when there are 120 teams in D-1 and each of them only plays 12 or 13 regular season games.
you're right that I didn't summarize the whole mailbag. But your quoted portion notwithstanding I highly doubt that Stewart Mandel would believe that around 50% of a league making the playoffs is the right amount when the teams already play every other team once or twice or three times in the regular season. Mandel argues in support of a format where 4 out of 120 teams qualify for the post-season (the post-season that determines the champ, i.e. not counting bowls as the post-season) and when each team hasn't played 90% of the other teams in the same division at all in an entire season.
I feel like anyone who uses NCAA playoffs (or lack there of) as some sort of justification about MLS' playoffs, be it positive or negative, doesn't understand the first thing about college ball and, frankly, if I may use a trademarked phrase, should go die in a fire. Seriously.
Are you getting all sensitive about a format discussion because it undercuts Houston's playoff run this year? I hope that most playoff supporters don't share your dark-ages point of view that voices of dissent should be burned. And you're wrong that college football and soccer are so different that the college football format can't have any relevance to the discussion. a checkers tournament could be relevant to the discussion insofar as it helps establish what the most interesting format is.