[Native]

just thought that this is an interesting comparison. These are the average attendance records per game in each of the following leagues for this current season (or this past season for leagues that were just completed).

NFL - 65,613
MLB - 26,626
NBA - 16,959
NHL - 16,539
MLS - 16,078
WNBA- 9,075

MLS attendance is right there with the NHL and NBA in terms of average attendance per game.

thoughts?

[Raj]

Native

You're new and the boards have recently been wiped so I'll quickly summarise the differences for you as they have been posted in numerous threads (usually by one of the andy's).

1) MLS has far less games per season than NHL or NBA.
2) They charge a far higher ticket price.

3) They maintain this attendance through the week on weeknights wheras MLS's best attendance is on the weekend.

4) Their capacity is generally lower than MLS stadia as well.

Therefore not really a relevant comparison.

[BallStateMiddie]

Yeah, what he said. But that doesn't mean we're getting better.

[Frank Cunha]

WNBA its coming down fast.
One thing expanded to fast.

We can improve on the 16,000+ but management got do there job.

[Darryl]

One more item is that the NBA has 29 (?) teams, the NHL has 30 teams. And they play 80 games a year, not 30 games a year (or whatever MLS plays).

So although the per-game attendance is the same, when you look at TICKET REVENUE, then what you really have is:

For every $1 in MLS

If we compare to NBA/NHL you must first double this because of higher seating prices in NBA/NHL, so you get:

$2 for NBA/NHL

(Note: it may be a lot higher than double)

next multiply by 3 because you have three times as many teams:

$6 for NBA/NHL

finally, multiple by 8/3 because you have 80 games compared to 30 games so you get:

$16 for NBA/NHL

So, by my admittedly non-scientific comparison, the NBA/NHL take in $16 in gross ticket revenue for every $1 that MLS takes in.

Of course, this is just one way to look at the numbers. However, gross ticket revenue is not a mad measure of a league's overall standing.

[SpeakEasy8]

The MLS/NHL comparison comes up often.

Lots of differences though. Many good ones have already been covered. Another difference I see is salaries. The Red Wings payroll is over $60 million/year... and the NY Rangers is even higher (but they cannot even make the playoffs hahaha). I could not imagine any one MLS team having that kind of payroll anytime in the immediate future.

It takes time to close gaps. I read an article in the Free Press this morning... Bobby Higginson (the MLB Tiger's marqee player.. but not a superstar in the league.. didn't even make the MLB all-star game) is scheduled to make $11.85 million next year. None of the Red Wings make that much.. and off-hand I can think of only one guy, Jaromir Jagr, in the entire NHL making that kind of money.

I kind of got off track.. but basically I'm saying that different leagues are sometimes tough to compare. I think MLS/Arena might be a better comparison (TV Deals, Salaries, Advertising, # of teams, etc..)

[superdave]

My thoughts?

1. As a reflection of popularity, I think these numbers do, in fact, demonstrate that MLS is underrated on SportsCenter.
2. Any attempts to read more into it than that are wrong, for reasons already listed on this thread.
3. One thing to keep in mind is that corporate accounts inflate the numbers for the big 4 leagues a bit, in terms of actual popularity. It varies from city to city, but alot of fans in those leagues are freebies for the fans, tho they still count as paid attendane.

[delo_pata]

Originally posted by superdave
My thoughts?

1. As a reflection of popularity, I think these numbers do, in fact, demonstrate that MLS is underrated on SportsCenter.

If SC chose what to report based on popularity, you'd have an argument, though NASCAR would, too. But SC is not about fairness at all. And it's certainly not about journalism. It's about making the most money possible in a way that still fits the personal world views (biases) of the staff about what the "good sports" are.

[PhilipReed]

I'm now going to hijack this thread to talk about what i want to talk about under the heading "Attendance Averages".







I've been running quick averages in my head for MLS weekends since the World Cup, and last week i came up with 17K average. To my knowledge this didn't include any special events like the July 4 fireworks. It included one of the absolute attendance dogs, San Jose (c'mon guys, if we got Real Madrid to be your home team there you think you could maybe break 13 thousand?); another site, NJ, which seems to be very sensitive to the level of opposition that was playing crummy opposition (NE); and yet still that 17 is higher than the pre-WC average.


Here's the raw data: http://www.mlsnet.com/schedules/




I know this is highly anecdotal and if i REALLY cared i'd do some regression analysis or something to see how the WC2002 effect is playing out. Nonetheless, intuitively i think it's helped the league by about one to two thousand per game. Is that going to make soccer the fourth major sport? Nope. But it'll help the league last the 30 or 40 years necessary for <TRAWLING>baseball to die off</TRAWLING>. Seriously, at this point it's about long term survival, and 17 looks a hella lot better than 14 a few years ago.







Can i get an amen?

[John Galt]

How on earth did the NBA average 16K + per game? All I ever see on highlight shows are empty seats. Surely these less than half full arenas don't hold more than 32k?