Step back and think about this. A 10 game week that produced an average over 15k without matches for Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, or Kansas City. A week over 15k when only one game Portland tops 20k, and that by just a few hundred. A week over 15k when 30% of the matches barely top 10k. 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. Update to Perceived Discussion: Nothing new to report this week.
So I already did some summary of week 6 above, and it really was an encouraging result in what probably would have been a really bad week in years past. Ten more games played and the sub 10k number continues to fall. Week 7 brings us another 10 matches, one Wednesday night tilt in Dallas. Followed by weekend home matches for, Montreal, New York, Philly, DC, Columbus, Chicago, Salt Lake, Colorado, and LA. So a chance for some really good numbers again. Last Weeks Games: Code: DC United 10135 Vancouver 15382 Toronto 19255 Columbus 10479 Colorado 19152 Vancouver 18027 Portland 20438 Chivas USA 14127 San Jose 10202 DC United 13262 [B]Total 150459[/B] [B][COLOR="Red"]Average 15046[/COLOR][/B] Milestones and other Miscellany: DC United joined the 250 home match club, with attendance of 4,281,163 in those matches. The predictive will make its return next week as we will be >20% of the way into the season. Comparison to This Point Last Season and All-Time Averages: Code: ----Team---- Played Current Last Diff Alltime Diff Chicago 2 14282 15180 -5.9% 15529 -8.0% Chivas USA 4 12422 14648 -15.2% 15863 -21.7% Colorado 3 15683 13727 14.2% 13971 12.3% Columbus 3 13397 10850 23.5% 15238 -12.1% DC United 5 13706 17113 -19.9% 17194 -20.3% FC Dallas 4 15079 16324 -7.6% 12203 23.6% Houston 0 0 0 0.0% 17327 0.0% Los Angeles 4 22233 25679 -13.4% 22067 0.8% Montréal 2 41016 New 0.0% New 0.0% New England 2 11657 10014 16.4% 15610 -25.3% Philadelphia 3 18263 17589 3.8% 18724 -2.5% Portland 4 20438 18627 9.7% 18827 8.6% Red Bull NY 3 17184 16318 5.3% 17159 0.0% Real Salt Lake 4 18554 16672 11.3% 16828 10.3% San Jose 4 13267 10064 31.8% 12820 3.5% Seattle 4 38419 36287 5.9% 35329 8.7% Sporting KC 4 18671 18017 3.6% 11386 64.0% Toronto FC 4 19186 19455 -1.4% 20264 -5.3% Vancouver 4 18451 20829 -11.4% 20412 -9.6% Overall - 18776 18197 3.2% 15739 19.3% DC is close to becoming worrisome just because of how far the numbers are off. They do however have an exciting team so perhaps the numbers will bounce back in the coming weeks.
I summarized above so I am just going to say wow, and leave it at that. Through week 6 MLS has played 63 matches or 19.5% of the season. Of those 63 matches, 43 have topped the 15k mark, and the standard deviation is 8337. Also because it was asked for the median of team medians is still 17820. This season would be first overall in the original AAQ at this point. Current Season: Code: Current Average Median <10k >20k AvgPts MedPts <10kPts >20kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk Date 1996 23795 21711 16.1% 58.1% 0 0 47 0 47 1 5/15 1997 16591 14485 25.8% 25.8% 67 78 79 67 290 9 5/3 1998 15370 12939 13.5% 21.6% 79 94 39 75 287 8 4/29 1999 14166 13697 32.4% 16.2% 90 86 100 87 363 16 5/1 2000 13099 12399 32.4% 13.5% 100 100 100 92 392 17 4/28 2001 14585 14488 19.4% 9.7% 86 78 58 100 321 13 5/5 2002 16228 13493 14.8% 18.5% 71 88 43 82 284 7 5/4 2003 14287 13722 31.0% 20.7% 89 86 95 77 347 14 5/17 2004 15664 13811 27.6% 31.0% 76 85 84 56 301 11 5/15 2005 14512 12449 27.0% 16.2% 87 99 82 87 355 15 5/14 2006 16627 16427 16.2% 24.3% 67 57 47 70 241 4 5/13 2007 14712 13935 15.8% 18.4% 85 84 46 82 297 10 5/13 2008 15699 15271 14.6% 31.7% 76 69 42 55 242 5 5/3 2009 14899 13439 15.9% 15.9% 83 89 46 87 306 12 4/26 2010 16526 14322 14.9% 23.4% 68 79 43 72 262 6 5/5 2011 17301 18087 8.3% 31.7% 61 39 22 55 176 3 4/30 2012 18776 18197 1.6% 33.3% 47 38 0 51 136 2 4/22 Current Average Median <10k >20k AvgPts MedPts <10kPts >20kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk Date Historical End of Season: Code: EOS Average Median <10k >20k AvgPts MedPts <10kPts >20kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk 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 EOS Average Median <10k >20k AvgPts MedPts <10kPts >20kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk Date
Considering the circumstances for each match it was a fair week. It still bodes well for MLS as a whole to be garnering these numbers. Warms the soccer soul within me to see another 150,000 seeing top professional soccer this week. And Portland on top for the week! [Can't wait for final exams to be over so I can get inside the stadium again]
DC's attendance this week was off but to be fair, Wednesday's game was up against the freekishly decent Nats who have been on a major early season roll and are leading the National League. I'm not a big baseball fan but even I was thinking of going yesterday. Sunday's game was on a day that had been predicted for constant rain (which was the case) and it was up against the Caps' potential (but sadly not) conclusive game 6 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Nats were at home as well but were rained out. I think a lot of folks chose to watch the Caps instead of sitting in the rain in the high 40s. I'm not saying that DC United's attendance is where it should be. But when the Caps finish breaking fans hearts (and I'm one of them) and the Nats return to their natural state, and if DC continues to play like they did today (and not on Wednesday against Montreal) I think the numbers are due for an respectable increase.
I agree, although its worth noting that we have had bad to horrible weather for most of our games. We have just had 2 games in four days with another coming up in less than a week. Caps were also trying to knock out Boston today and the Nats had a game scheduled (although it turned out to get rained out today). Not excuses, but hopefully reasons not to panic quite yet in DC, but these are still pretty low numbers and definite cause for concern. If we keep playing well and the weather gets better and people still don't come then we've got a problem.
I understand all those points, but at the same time it seems odd that more advance tickets were not sold for a rivalry match. Then there was the home opener, which seems to have had a suspiciously low number. Perhaps things will turn around during the rest of the season. An exciting team which DC has should help.
Haven't made the playoffs in 5 years, their DPs suck, the weather was awful, and the Nats are off to their best start ever. It takes more than a good month to rebuild the fanbase after all that.
All sports franchise attendances have a natural state of flux and we simply have little idea of the natural highs and lows for most franchises that success and failure will bring. On top of that we are still seeing franchises settle into new stadiums and the general attendance and appreciation of the sport still seems to be on an up curve and there is no telling yet where that will peek though of course that is part of the fun of this thread - trying to gauge the range where a franchise and the leagues natural attendance will settle with such a small data set. My guess would be that DCU's current attendance would be at the lower end of their natural lifetime attendance cycle and I only see the number improving as the season progresses. I don't know what the average percentage high/low attendance spread would be season by season for settled franchises playing in the established leagues but maybe there are some clues out there to help us distinguish between what sort of numbers might truly represent a struggling franchise and those that are just part of a natural cycle?
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: 63 Total Attnd: 1,182,899 Average Attnd: 18,776 Median Attnd: 18,197 Median-33%: 12,137 Median+33%: 24,275 <MED-33%: 10 / 15.9% >MED+33%: 6 / 9.5% Average %CAP: 82.5% Median %CAP: 85.8% Games <70%: 16 / 25.4% Games >90%: 29 / 46.0% 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); MON (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); MON 4/7 (58,500) 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 treated as 100%.
Ole, you likely already mentioned this but what is the reason for stopping at 100%? All other US league track over 100% when measuring capacity. http://espn.go.com/nhl/attendance/_/year/2011 http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance/_/year/2011 http://espn.go.com/mlb/attendance/_/year/2011 http://espn.go.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2011
because MLS teams are notorious for reporting one "capacity" for seating and then selling up to 1-2K more in "SRO". i just thought it was better for the "mean" to go with 100% being the max ... teams shouldn't get rewarded for sketchy capacity reporting. and it really has no effect on the median. i do keep track of both sets of numbers but i just don't really see how some teams having 107% capacity is really very helpful ... but the difference is only about .5% anyway ...
honestly i don't follow other leagues that closely ... the only number crunching for other leagues i have done is a yearly average composite analysis where the % capacity was simply calculated by the yearly average vs the listed capacity. we track MLS on a game by game basis so it is a bit different. i will say that on the team by team stats i get the % capacity by just taking the "total capacity" / "total attendance" ... so in effect teams get "credit" for over 100%. but when it came to the mls as a whole data set i just thought it was best to try and filter out any "noise". but i really don't mind using the other number (counting %CAP over 100% into the average) if that is what people think is best.
cool. I don't care either way too much as I was just was wondering the justification. I do think the using %cap over 100% is certainly more accurate than just tossing it, but unlike say the NHL, it happens less enough that it probably won't swing the numbers too much either way.
I don't mind it being factored out on a weekly basis as in losing the >100% value so long as it is not dropped from the total analysis, which in most cases will not be >100% for a full season.
I don't know if it is "best," but that "%CAP over 100%" data point does have a meaning and/or some significance (even on an individual game level), and I don't see the logic in removing something (or a portion of something) that exists (or is available as data).
I don't think it's odd given how early it is in the season. Had the weather been nice like it was on Saturday, I'll bet there would've been very strong walk-up sales.
Fair enough. I guess the 2009 and 2010 season saw the attendance fall off a bit in this rivalry. Over the 30 games that DC has hosted in this rivalry both the Average and Median are basically 16k. But since 2009 13k or less has been the norm, last season being the exception.
I have finally gotten to the point, after 16 years of MLS, at which the box score attendance isn't the first thing I check when I go to the MLS site. Even back in 1996 I was doing that, checking the box scores in USA Today mainly for the attendance! At this point it seems like I know pretty much what every team is going to draw, and the league isn't going anywhere anyway. The only exception right now for me is Montreal, I guess because they're new and their attendance at least until their stadium is done could fluctuate from like 23K to 60k. Houston's numbers will be interesting too once they move into their new pad.
I think it's hard to read in too much to those individual data points. Each one has extenuating circumstances. To give a picture of what it was like in DC this past weekend: Saturday's weather was gorgeous - 82 degrees and sunny, not humid. By Saturday evening, clouds were rolling in and it started to rain. By the time game-time rolled around on Sunday, the high temp was 52 and there was solid, steady rain all day long. Had the game been scheduled for Saturday evening, even with rain that night but with a good day in advance for tailgating and general good moods, I'll bet walk-up sales would've been much stronger, netting an additional few thousand attendees. But with rain all day on Sunday, people knew exactly what the conditions were going to be without leaving the house. In short, I think those kinds of factors matter more than the opponent.
Blame Canada: Both Toronto and Vancouver have drawn fewer than 20,000 fans for each of their past three games.
