Just so. We'll never be able to penetrate all of this, but it underscores an important point IMO. General admission attendance probably accounts for about a third (or less) of most MLS teams' revenue. They sink or swim based on shirt deals, stadium naming deals, and ancillary revenue from the stadium (suites, concessions, and leasing it out for other events). Teams without both shirt deals and stadium deals probably aren't operating in the black IMO. Most can't sell enough tickets to make up the difference.
Oh I bet you it is closer to half of their revenue (ticket sales combines with in stadium purchase). I think the real issue, is for a lot of teams the opportunity to grow revenue via stadium expenditure is very limited and close to capped (based on fan base or capacity). So the conclusion is the same, teams need to sink or swim into profit based on ancillary revenue streams.
Not to quibble, but outside of teams with very high attendance, if ticket sales are half their revenue, they are losing money. It's hard to generate $4m net in ticket sales. Remember, in 2005 average paid attendance was 10,746. Both the KC and Portland studies assumed paid attendance of about 12,000. Even if teams sell 14,000 general admission tickets a game and they average $25 a ticket -- a decent bump over the $22 league average in 2008 and well above the season ticket cost in Colorado Jasonma reported -- thats $4.165M net to the team. As for the in-stadium ancillaries, the KC study breaks this out, but as I recall a net of $5 per attendee was very good. (You have to subtract the cost of the concession items, and some teams don't report that). In other words, 300,000 attendees -- 17,647 per game -- would generate $1.5M. And how many teams really have crowds of 17,647 per game? Refresh my memory OleGunnar, what did Forbes report the average MLS revenue was in that video piece, $15.5M? I just don't think most of the legacy teams generate $7.75M from general admission tickets and in-stadium ancillaries, although I concede teams with high attendance (meaning people actually show up in the stadium to buy stuff) probably do. I really think if we could see the numbers, $5M in general admission ticket sales and in stadium ancillaries combined would be considered a good number, but obviously that alone won't put a team into the black.
We shall quibble. Those studies and associated numbers are grossly out of date now even at a few years old. There is another thread that lists season ticket numbers alone where I think half the teams top over 8k. Average ticket prices are also going to be closer 30+ for those teams ( you can look a season ticket prices). But just talking more general if you take the league average and assume 15% freebies ( too high now but we will go with it) your at a 6.8 million average with $25 tickets. That is before in stadium and parking revenue. I would be surprised if any more than five teams are below stadium revenue of five million.