Code: % of season completed 73.30% Year Average Median %<10K %>20k 1996 18232 15711 22.2% 29.1% 1997 14984 13136 19.7% 16.2% 1998 14569 11871 24.3% 16.4% 1999 14671 13128 30.7% 16.4% 2000 13652 12792 35.7% 11.4% 2001 14955 13844 27.0% 18.3% 2002 15696 13507 19.6% 17.6% 2003 14544 13357 25.5% 18.2% 2004 15182 13122 27.3% 23.6% 2005 14823 12167 30.0% 15.0% 2006 15597 13084 20.7% 18.6% 2007 15870 14351 9.8% 22.4% 2008 16482 15188 11.0% 25.3% Final Numbers Year Average Median %<10K %>20k 1996 17406 15093 21.9% 26.3% 1997 14619 12733 25.0% 16.3% 1998 14312 11871 26.6% 16.1% 1999 14282 12973 32.3% 15.1% 2000 13756 12690 34.4% 12.5% 2001 14962 13431 26.6% 17.7% 2002 15821 14108 17.1% 18.6% 2003 14898 13641 23.3% 18.0% 2004 15559 13285 24.7% 25.3% 2005 15108 12619 27.1% 17.7% 2006 15504 14175 18.8% 18.8% 2007 16770 15353 8.2% 29.7%
Average: 2nd out of 13 Median: 2nd out of 13 <10k: 2nd out of 13 >20k: 2nd out of 13 AAQ remains a rock solid 2
Can MLS have a higher 2008 mean attendance than in 2007? With two teams playing most of their games in 10,000 seat stadiums? In a bad economy? The <10,000 stat is simply amazing. From my eagle-eye vantage point, the only teams that seem to regularly pad attendances this year are NY & Colorado.
In last weeks thread, lawrenceterp performed a nice analysis of the 4 categories. It does seem statistically difficult to beat last years mean when looking at the remaining games.
I think the point was that we have no business being even close to last year's numbers, given the current circumstances.
It's a good thing that we don't count players in the attendance stats, or all the international call-ups would be killing us until season's end. [/threadjack] Yeah, the resilience of attendance under current conditions is surprising. I'm tempted to think that MLS may be benefiting from the poor economy in a roundabout way. Tickets are cheaper than Am. football and even cheaper than baseball most of the time, so maybe people (parents, I'd guess) are taking their kids to the soccer game instead. Not that I have a shred of evidence to back that up, of course.
I'm going to try and follow up Andy's post each week with these numbers as well. I have my spreadsheet set up to automate all these numbers. I just plug in the official attendance for every game and it spits these out for me. This is where we stand on all four of the measures we study. We have 56 to go. In those 56 games we need..... Average to get 1st - 1,117,748 (19,960 per game) to get 2nd - 983,467 (17,562 per game) to get 3rd - 784,751 (14,013 per game) Median to get 1st - 32 games higher then 15,353 to get 2nd - 28 games higher then 15,093 to get 3rd - 18 games higher then 14,175 %<10K to get 1st - 0 games lower then 10,000 (1 more and we're 2nd at best) to get 2nd - no more then 18 games lower then 10,000 to get 3rd - no more then 22 games lower then 10,000 %>20k to get 1st - 24 games higher then 20,000 to get 2nd - 17 games higher then 20,000 to get 3rd - 15 games higher then 20,000
I'm betting TFC's attendance on Saturday is the lowest in our History. Canada is playing and with all the reserves out, I would expect a poorer turnout.
Im a little confused... 2nd and 3rd should not be exact numbers, but should be ranges. So, is 2nd place 983,467 - 1,117,747? And 1st I am assuming is 1,117,748 and above.
you are correct. read it like this to make it easier (the ranges are implied) to get 1st - >1,117,748 (19,960 per game) to get 2nd - >983,467 (17,562 per game) to get 3rd - >784,751 (14,013 per game)
Thanks for posting these numbers again. Last week's average was over 17.5K. This week's average should be pretty darn close to it too. Maybe this race for 2nd will turn out to be a little bit closer than I expected. We had that one RSL game last week that was 15.2K. If only an extra 100 people would've shown up, we could be in good shape to get the best median of all time.
7140 in Dallas tonight. Is that the second smallest crowd of the season? (Behind only the Crew's 6733 from back in April?)
7k for dallas. let's see... first night of nfl football, and although the cowboys weren't playing, it was two teams from their division. i guess that's enough for football crazy texas. otoh, the nfl is not about to go away. and here i'd like to make an mls scheduling remark, or actually two. mls pbl knows when nfl opening night will be, although it does not know the opening game yet. but to be safe they might schedule the galaxy that night (no nfl in la) instead of going 'head on' with the nfl interest in a city like dallas. also... iirc, last week there was no thursday night game. i believe that was due to espn wanting to launch the college football season. this week, otoh, they put mls up as a sort of sacrificial lamb against the nfl. of course it'd have been nicer for mls to have a game last thursday, and skip this week. but i realize that's beyond their control.
Yeah - team with crappy record + bad attendance record this year + Thursday night = craptacular attendance
And here I thought it was because management closed off half of the parking lot and didn't open concessions on time.... Silly me