And with the final numbers, league attendance for Week 2 of the NASL fall season is 8,481. Enjoy your vegetables.
And for those of us that prefer to look at Spring and Fall as a single season: Division 2 Code: 40.7% of year complete Year Avg Median %<2K %>10k 2002 2502 2041 47.1% 1.0% 2003 2715 1635 54.6% 1.9% 2004 3596 3014 29.7% 2.2% 2005 4058 3554 22.1% 4.4% 2006 4170 3230 16.2% 4.4% 2007 4352 3960 25.0% 8.8% 2008 4970 4382 13.4% 10.4% 2009 4163 3248 19.4% 7.5% -------------------------------------- 2010 4532 3569 31.1% 11.1% -------------------------------------- 2011 3459 2692 26.7% 8.9% 2012 3747 3020 26.7% 4.4% 2013 4534 4463 5.1% 0.0% 2014 5463 4855 0.0% 12.7% Median-33%: 3237 Median+33%: 6473 <MED-33%: 11 / 20% >MED+33%: 17 / 30.9% Code: Final Numbers Year Avg Median %<2K %>10k 2002 3037 2185 40.1% 3.6% 2003 3335 2463 42.9% 4.1% 2004 3878 3107 30.9% 4.5% 2005 4527 3554 19.6% 7.7% 2006 4666 3370 18.5% 10.7% 2007 4771 4274 19.6% 10.1% 2008 5164 4510 10.9% 12.1% 2009 4709 3662 21.2% 13.3% -------------------------------------- 2010 4449 2872 28.9% 12.2% -------------------------------------- 2011 3770 2795 28.6% 11.6% 2012 3806 3154 25.0% 4.5% 2013 4670 4442 3.3% 1.1% That number in Atlanta is the lowest attendance they've had since their season closer in '12. It will be interesting to see how Ottawa does the rest of the season. If this is a trend, then what was once a somewhat bell-shaped league attendance-wise will have turned into a bell-shaped league with a couple outliers in a positive direction. Which kinda makes a mess of the Med +- 33% figures. Next week/end: San Antonio (Wed), Atlanta, Carolina, Fort Lauderdale, Tampa Bay, Edmonton. That should swing the numbers back in the other direction again.
That is a great starting weekend for Ottawa with a sellout for friday night CFL game on National TV on TSN followed by this almost 15K. Rangers FC on Thusrday will bring some international flavor to Ottawa. neither the Fury nor REDBALCKS play at home next weekend and the Rangers game has already been promoted through ticket packages tied to other games. Many in Ottawa who may have missed this weekend will get a chance thursday with a different variety in an international friendly.
The pregame weather in Atlanta was terrible. Down pour all day until just a couple of hours before game time. With the threat of more in the evening. I would think it kept many of the families from coming out. Hopfully next week will be better.
Absolutely. Now let's hope they can be more like INDY, which appears as though it can sustain large crowds for the long run, as opposed to the Cosmos who started very strong but have been mostly on the decline since. Obviously, I don't think we will see many more, if any 14k+ crowds in Ottawa barring special events, but if they can remain strong that is a good sign. The league needs teams that are stable and can stand on their own without major foreign investments (Sela and Traffic) keeping an otherwise flailing club alive. You never know when those sugar daddy's may decide to take a hike and leave those clubs out to dry.
I suspected it might be something like that. I wasn't intending it to be a criticism of any kind, just making an observation.
There's nothing wrong with foreign investment in the league, so long as those foreign investors are willing to spend their money wisely and continuously. And there's nothing that makes them inherently more likely to bail on their clubs than domestic investors. I think the key is that all investors need to focus on advertising, ticket sales, and local media presence. The reason teams like Minnesota are doing so well in terms of attendance is that they're everywhere this summer. The players are making appearances on either the AM or 5 o'clock news almost once a week, they frequently do local radio (as does coach Manny Lagos), they come up with interesting features to do with the local newspapers, and now midfielder Jamie Watson is going to have his own weekly soccer show on the radio as well. This sort of thing happens because you hire people who know how to use the media -- how to convince local outlets that you can give them cheap/free, interesting content with very little effort on their part. Pair that with what I can only guess is one of the largest ticket offices in the league and you've got a winning formula.
Ottawa will open up more than the approximately 7K seats in their soccer config if they need to but I wouldn't expect any more 14K+ crowds this Fall Season but who knows. If they can pull in 5-7K consistently for the remainder of the season that would be great.
I know we wish Cosmos were doing better, but even with them, the league attendance has been pretty good this year. As of right now, 46% of all games have been played in front of >5,000! Indy is averaging >10,000. NOBODY is averaging less than 3,500. Only (2) teams are averaging less than 4,000.
In this decade the NASL will be just as popular as the MLS, take my word, and the MLS will be as popular as the NHL
8643 in Ottawa for their friendly vs Scotland's Rangers FC tonight. They used the soccer config plus the upper stand had a few people in it, looks like it will work well if they get enough of a crowd regularily, looked packed tonight.
I think that for next season when everything is complete that they should make some slight adjustments to the soccer configuration. There are two sections at each end of the lower level south side stands that are pretty far back away from the pitch in the corners well behind the goal. Perhaps covering those two sections on each side with sponsor and logo tarps. Open up the field seats on the North side to bring fans closer to the pitch as well as having fans on both sidelines. Eventually the possibility of having a small section of temp seats placed behind each goal as well where the supporters groups can purchase for every match at TD place. That would also have fan seating surrounding and being closer to the pitch. opposed to having the second level of the south side open where the fans there are also further from the pitch. Looking at the soccer set up before the stadium opened It appeared that they would have at least those north side field level seats open just some observations. However for really having hardly any time for any dry runs it looked fantastic and 8K for a wed friendly Rangers FC will likely be a yearly match that Ottawa may look to have.
WOW that is a great crowd for two WED mid week games. San Antone also does a great job with being where they are located to play quite a few friendlies vs Mexican pro sides as well as pre season amtches with both MLS texas clubs Houston and Dallas. Their fan base is great filling the venue for NASL and non NASL matches both on the weekend or the mid week.
To be fair they did offer tickets for $5 with a can of food for the SA Food Bank. And they also offered Season Ticket holders 2 free tickets at the last minute, so not sure how many took advantage of the offer. But they did get fans in the seats which is the goal. What was crazy is that fans were still coming in at half time after standing in line for 45-60 minutes. So they need to fix the will call to where fans can get in faster.
promotions to get fans to a game happen in everysport in every league so I agree it is about getting fans in the seats especially during a much more difficult weekday game. The great news is that it worked as many promotion flop
Good (but not great) numbers except for the Strikers who had 3400+ for their last home game vs the Cosmos - thats what happens when you don't spend on marketing (last year they had 7400+ when they decided to spend $ to market the game) but at least they have a solid 3K core. Hopefully the rumored sale of the team takes place soon and they can improve things like the Minnesota and Tampa Bay ownership changes did. FC Edmonton will christen their new Turf field (no pointy ball lines!) at Clarke Stadium tomorrow and hopefully draw well against Indy Eleven.
I watched the end of the ATL/MNU game and it was nice to see a good crowd at Silverback Park. Their technical capacity is 5k, so almost a sell out!