Attendance - Baseball Years vs Three Yrs Ago

[John L]

The arrival of baseball at RFK has meant moving the stands along Home and Third Base that used to form El Norte and the Coffin Corner out to Left Field for BB and SE

What's been the impact on attendance? - What were the figures for 3 yrs ago (even as skewed by Freddy's first year) versus the last two years?

Seems like games we should be at 20 or 22K (like last night) only turn out to be 18K - I think there's been a negative impact here on attendance - Or am I being overly optimistic by expecting attendance up the 20's all the time?

[spidergoose]

The arrival of baseball at RFK has meant moving the stands along Home and Third Base that used to form El Norte and the Coffin Corner out to Left Field for BB and SE
Well, not quite. The Eagles and Barra are in the same stands they've always been in, the North end was taken out alltogether.

What's been the impact on attendance? - What were the figures for 3 yrs ago (even as skewed by Freddy's first year) versus the last two years?
2003 - 14,368
2004 (Freddy) - 17,176
2005 - 16,744

Seems like games we should be at 20 or 22K (like last night) only turn out to be 18K - I think there's been a negative impact here on attendance - Or am I being overly optimistic by expecting attendance up the 20's all the time?
I'd say that's a bit of an unrealistic expectation, yeah. So far this year we're averaging around 16,000 which is above the pre-baseball years.

[tallguy]

The Nationals have had no measurable effect on United's attendence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._United

Average attendance
regular season/playoffs

1996: 15,262/18,946
1997: 16,698/20,202
1998: 16,008/14,903
1999: 17,419/12,647
2000: 18,580/missed playoffs
2001: 21,518/missed playoffs
2002: 16,519/missed playoffs
2003: 15,565/15,202
2004: 17,232/18,842
2005: 16,664/20,089
All-Time: 17,200

This site also has some interesting tidbits about United's attendance:

http://www.kenn.com/soccer/mls/dcunited.html

[BBBulldog]

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000294GDQ.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg:D

[nobletea]

Seems like games we should be at 20 or 22K (like last night) only turn out to be 18K - I think there's been a negative impact here on attendance - Or am I being overly optimistic by expecting attendance up the 20's all the time?

Not optimistic, just fooled. A few of us were commenting on this in another thread a couple weeks ago. Since baseball a number of fans' attendance estimations have been put off because when the endline stand was present there were a couple more seats filled and the side lines looked about the same. Net effect is that we're seeing what used to 20k, but without those couple thousand on the end lines, it's less than that though it "feels" like more to us.

Anyway, that's the common theory I think. I think I'm just getting my estimates accurate again this season.

[nancyb]

The Nationals have had no measurable effect on United's attendence.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D.C._United

Average attendance
regular season/playoffs

1996: 15,262/18,946
1997: 16,698/20,202
1998: 16,008/14,903
1999: 17,419/12,647
2000: 18,580/missed playoffs *
2001: 21,518/missed playoffs *
2002: 16,519/missed playoffs
2003: 15,565/15,202
2004: 17,232/18,842
2005: 16,664/20,089
All-Time: 17,200

This site also has some interesting tidbits about United's attendance:

http://www.kenn.com/soccer/mls/dcunited.html

* - doubleheaders with WC Qualifiers. Both in excess of 50K. When are the WUSA years? They also had doubleheaders that helped the numbers.

[Foots]

* - doubleheaders with WC Qualifiers. Both in excess of 50K. When are the WUSA years? They also had doubleheaders that helped the numbers.

WUSA years were 2001-2003.

[McOwen]

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000294GDQ.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg:D

Speaking of this... Why is La Norte in the feminine "la" and not the masculine "el." I have two years of college Spanish and a good Spanish dictionary and cant figure it out :o

[spidergoose]

Owen, I'm pretty sure this was just explained a couple weeks ago :p

[BBBulldog]

3 out of top 4 Croat groups are feminine names :D

[Darth Norteño]

Speaking of this... Why is La Norte in the feminine "la" and not the masculine "el." I have two years of college Spanish and a good Spanish dictionary and cant figure it out :o

I think it's because the original name was "La Curva Norte" and the "curva" just got removed; that's how I understand it.

[spidergoose]

"Destiny Awaits?"

bwahaha :D