Number of season tickets for each team.

each number is a clickable link to the source of the number.

 

CONFIRMED:​

​

Seattle Sounders FC --------- 32,000 (2010)​

​

Toronto FC -------------------- 16,000 (2012)​

​

Portland Timbers FC --------- 14,750 (2012)​

​

Vancouver Whitecaps FC ---- 13,000 (2012)​

​

Philadelphia Union - 12,000-13,000 (2011)​

​

Houston Dynamo ------------- 12,000 (2012)​

​

Sporting Kansas City --------- 11,000 (2011)​

​

Los Angeles Galaxy ------------ 7,500 (2012)​

​

Montreal Impact --------------- 7,500 (2012)​

​

Real Salt Lake --------- 7,000-8,000 (2011)​

​

Chicago Fire -------------------- 6,000 (2012)​

​

Columbus Crew ---------------- 5,000 (2012)​

​

San Jose Earthquakes -------- 4,000 (2012)​

​

SPECULATIVE:​

​

Red Bull New York ----------- 7,800 (2012)​

​

MISSING:​

​

Chivas USA, Colorado Rapids, DC United, FC Dallas, NE Revolution,​

 

Well at least we now know NE's number can't be more than 6,149.

 

I'm going to venture a guess that the five teams that we don't have data for are probably the bottom five in the league for STH numbers. With the exception of Chivas USA (who also share LA's market), all of them are legacy teams. I'm not terribly surprised that the newer clubs have stronger numbers than the older ones.

I've been told a couple of different numbers for Colorado, but they're hard to pin down because they make no distinction between full-season and partial-season packages. The most recent number I've heard was from Tim Hinchey (Rapids GM), and told me about a month ago that they had around 3,000 full-season packages. Thats a lot lower than I had expected, hearing numbers like 5,000 in the past, but who knows how they actually stack up?

New England, Dallas, and DC are probably in the same ballpark. I doubt Chivas is north of 1,500. I of course base this off of absolutely nothing.

 

Would like to see LA, RSL, MTL, and NY all join the 10,000+ club.

 

It would be interesting to add the stadium capacities to this list. I'm wondering if San Jose's low STH number is possibly in line with a national average for filling MLS stadiums. E.g., San Jose has about 40% of Buck Shaw stadium taken by STHs. That sounds a lot better than being in last place.

 

Well thanks to an epic (even for the Rapids) screw up we now know the number of season ticket holders for the Rapids. In their email to season ticket holders today on buying tickets to the Swansea match they accidentally attached the spreadsheet of every season ticket holder's information. Names, emails, phone numbers, total number of tickets, total cost, amount paid, and amount still due. Luckily there was no payment info attached but still a massive fail of information security.

So based on the spreadsheet the Rapids have just about 3500 season ticket holders.

 

D'oh!

 

3500 holders or does that number represent "tickets"?

What is the full season ticket equivalent?

Does Colorado offer partial season packages, and did the leak include that list?

 

3500 tickets. About 1450 ticket holders. The file seems to include a few people that have tickets to half the games but I know they've shied away from half-season tickets in the past so there may not be that many of them. There are about 100 people on the list that don't have 17 events listed but most of them are still 3/4ths or more of the events so I'm guessing they're people who have bought season tickets since the start of the season.

As to partial packages (like 5 game packs) that's not included.

 

CONFIRMED:​

​

Seattle Sounders FC --------- 32,000 (2010)​

​

Toronto FC ------------------- 16,000 (2012)​

​

Portland Timbers FC --------- 14,750 (2012)​

​

Vancouver Whitecaps FC ---- 13,000 (2012)​

​

Philadelphia Union -- 12,000-13,000 (2011)​

​

Houston Dynamo ------------- 12,000 (2012)​

​

Sporting Kansas City --------- 11,000 (2011)​

​

Los Angeles Galaxy ------------ 7,500 (2012)​

​

Montreal Impact --------------- 7,500 (2012)​

​

Real Salt Lake ---------- 7,000-8,000 (2011)​

​

Chicago Fire -------------------- 6,000 (2012)​

​

Columbus Crew ---------------- 5,000 (2012)​

​

San Jose Earthquakes ---------- 4,000 (2012)​

​

​

SPECULATIVE:​

​

Red Bull New York ----------- 7,800 (2012)​

Colorado Rapids -------------- 3,500 (2012)​

​

​

MISSING:​

​

Chivas USA, DC United, FC Dallas, NE Revolution,​

 

Ole, you should make a special note/section about Colorado. You are listing it under speculative but I bet it is significantly more accurate than any of the other numbers you listed as confirmed.

 

This. I won't add to the Rapids information f-up by actually emailing you the spreadsheet Ole, but trust me I could list out the name of every full season ticket holder for the Rapids on this thread if I really wanted to.

 

From my calculations using the Rapid's spreadsheet, the hard numbers are as follows:

Full Season Tickets - 3,518 (accounts with tickets for 13 games or more)
Other - 43 (less than 13)
Total - 3,561

*Edit - "Full Season Tickets" actually means individual people who have a ticket for every home game. So that is a butts-in-seats number, not the actual number of packages.

 

i absolutely appreciate that these numbers are probably quite legit ... but as has already been established in this thread earlier ... in order for the season ticket number to be in the "confirmed" category it needs to have a link to a verifable/reliable source that directly quotes a team official.

unfortunately this source isn't something that can be linked to and viewed by others ... and while i trust the information personally think of this list as sort of like "wikipedia" where it has to meet certain criteria to be int he "confirmed" category.

having said that at least the number is on the "speculative" list and if people really want i can footnote where that information came from ... tho people could also get that from the thread.

i will also change the "speculative" category to the less pejorative "unconfirmed"

 

CONFIRMED:​

​

Seattle Sounders FC --------- 32,000 (2010)​

​

Toronto FC ------------------- 16,000 (2012)​

​

Portland Timbers FC --------- 14,750 (2012)​

​

Vancouver Whitecaps FC ---- 13,000 (2012)​

​

Philadelphia Union -- 12,000-13,000 (2011)​

​

Houston Dynamo ------------- 12,000 (2012)​

​

Sporting Kansas City --------- 11,000 (2011)​

​

Los Angeles Galaxy ------------ 7,500 (2012)​

​

Montreal Impact --------------- 7,500 (2012)​

​

Real Salt Lake ---------- 7,000-8,000 (2011)​

​

Chicago Fire -------------------- 6,000 (2012)​

​

Columbus Crew ---------------- 5,000 (2012)​

​

San Jose Earthquakes ---------- 4,000 (2012)​

​

​

​

UNCONFIRMED:​

​

Red Bull New York ----------- 7,800 (2012)​

Colorado Rapids -------------- 3,500 (2012)*​

​

*from leaked internal club documents not available to the general public​

​

​

​

MISSING:​

​

Chivas USA, DC United, FC Dallas, NE Revolution,​

 

Is the 3,500 more/less than you would have thought? And why would they shy away from half-season packages? You'd think they'd sell any grouping that they could.

 

Just because a club official releases a number, in no way should that ever indicate that the number is real. Some may be exact, some may be close, some may be well off.

Any team that releases the numbers does so with specific intentions. I would not put it past any team to fudge the numbers to their own benefit.

You wikipedia example is ironic considering as everyone knows that wiki has more than its share of "confirmed" data that is flat out wrong.

 

It is really not appropriate to post that spreadsheet online where everyone on the planet can see it. So don't hold your breath for a web link.

The major reason why the spreadsheet leak is such a huge f-up on Rapids' part is not because we are able to determine how many season ticket holders they have...but because that excel file also has the names, phone numbers, and email addresses of every account holder.

You'll just have to take our word for it.

 

Lower than I expected, I thought we were closer to around 5K. A couple of seasons ago they really pushed to get people away from half and into full season tickets, even to the point of not selling half season tickets for a while, and while they now will sell half season tickets they aren't pushing them.

To follow Quinn's point about why this f-up is so bad, not only was the contact information included, but also exactly how much each person paid for their tickets and what outstanding balance, if any, they had. I'm pretty sure the league office is going to be pissed at this mistake because now anyone who's analyzing MLS's finances has a confirmed data point for how much money a team is making through season tickets ($20.28 per ticket per game in this case). While you can't take Colorado's number and apply it across the board it makes it more difficult for MLS to sell certain numbers while this data is out there.

 

just like the debate over the announced attendances for each mls game vs the "perceived" reality there really isn't any debate. you have to go with the official numbers because those are the only verifiable and consistent across teams numbers you have.

can you be a total cynic and assume every team is misreporting/padding their numbers (either with gameday attnd or sths) if you like. but how on earth do you determine which teams are lying and which aren't ... and by how much. you cannot, it is a fools errand so you just report the official numbers, sourced so that others can also verify the same information, and assume people are smart enough to understand for themselves that "official" does not mean 100% infallible.

and my reference to wikipedia was only to give an example of a standard of verifiable sources. on wikipedia a "personal knowledge" doesn't constitute a verifiable source. a source must be something that any can follow a link to and see the information for themselves and it must also be from a reliable source (in our case of STH that would be either directly or indirectly thru another reporting source from the team/fo itself).

and the Colorado number is now listed with a notation so i really don't see what the debate is about.

 

ok I will drop it.

If you can't see the difference between a source from the club announcing a number that no one can verify and a list that has the EXACT number of holders on it, verified by multiple people, I am not sure what else can be said.

The fact that you are comparing EXACT numbers on a spread sheet to people guessing about perceived attendance is just bizarre in so many ways to me.

 

Now, I'm not one to suggest someone do a bunch of extra work just to satisfy my personal whims*, but it seems to me that it would be possible to scrub the spreadsheet of any personal and financial information and put in a Google doc. Then Ole would have his precious link, and we would forever consider the 3,500 number as totally legit.











*not true


Edit: Here's a link. It's confirmed!

 

ha. that won't last long if the wiki-nazis find it ... take it from somebody who tried to put the montreal player numbers into wiki during the preason from watching the mls feeds of the game and recording the numbers ... my visual observations of the players during the game wearing the numbers wasn't considered a verifiable source.

as soon as some intrepid blogger/reporter gets the Colorado front office on the record about this snafu of releasing the information and the FO person confirms the 3,500 number there should be an article somewhere out there we can link to and put it into the confirmed category.