Code: % of season completed 76.3% Year Average Median %<10K %>20k 1996 17997 15220 23.0% 28.7% 1997 14945 13152 20.5% 16.4% 1998 14421 11682 24.7% 15.8% 1999 14527 13101 31.5% 15.8% 2000 13515 12546 36.3% 11.0% 2001 14854 13431 25.8% 17.5% 2002 15606 13507 18.9% 17.0% 2003 14574 13442 24.6% 17.5% 2004 15107 13122 27.2% 22.8% 2005 14779 12167 30.1% 15.1% 2006 15372 13036 21.9% 17.8% 2007 15937 14464 10.1% 22.3% 2008 16476 15264 11.3% 25.0% 2009 15873 14611 15.8% 20.5% 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% 2008 16459 15188 11.0% 24.8%
AAQ: Average: 4th out of 14 Median: 3rd out of 14 <10k: 3rd out of 14 >=20k: 5th out of 14 AAQ: 3.75 The median looks like it will shortly lose its grip on 3rd place and move down to 4th place by the end of the season. I think the final AAQ will be between 4 and 5.
I am a trend guy and one trend that bothers me is that when looking at the 4 major categories, all are dropping when compared to last year, and all 4 dropped last year when compared to 2007(which was MLS's best year to be fair).
US unemployment rate, December 2007 - 4.9% US unemployment rate, June 2009 - 9.5% Is the trend worrisome? Sure. Is it specific to MLS? I don't think so.
I find it fascinating how 2009 continues to track 2007, despite 2007 being the best year for attendance in MLS history. Andy, when did the 2007 numbers start jumping ahead?
Without the World Cup in '94, the league never exists and we never get the distinct privilege of reading MM10S's crap every day.
*gasps* Really? That's shocking! Who knew?!?! It's not like this hasn't been mentioned every single week. Yay! Seattle saved MLS!
And by "one of the lower years ever" you mean 10th out of 14th. In the middle of a recession. Yeah it wouldn't be great but I'm not sure that's a disaster.
This. Again, I'll re-iterate myself, this time with nifty graphs: That's the unemployment rate over the past 10 years from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
At about the 60% mark. Blanco and the remaining Beck's affect really started driving the numbers, especially the median which experience a significant jump in the second half of the season. It won't be long before the 2007 median jumps past the 2009 IMO.
but you can't cherry pick like that and get a logical result. You would have to also remove a variable from every season and then do your comparison.
since we're discussing hypothetical MLS set-ups (what would the average be without Seattle), does anyone have a projected average for 2009 if say KC and/or SJ weren't in temporary 10K venues, but instead were already in ~18K venues and hypothetically averaging 14-15K fans or so? it's not that I really care, but it's just that these "what if" scenarios are kinda pointless, imo. given that MLS does expand, and new teams seem to join pretty regularly across recent seasons. the average attendance in Seattle has been outstanding in their year one (and likely will continue for many seasons), no doubt about it. but help (in terms of attendance) from new teams (be they Seattle or TFC or whomever in the future) is greatly important, and it should be expected and weighed in amongst all the important "attendance factors" that MLS encounters as it expands the number of teams in the league (and still doesn't yet have all teams in ideal stadium situations/locations).
San Jose has an average in that range this year due to the Galaxy games in Oakland and the Barcelona double header.
You could see Colorado spelled on the seats clearly so there is no way it could have been more then half full.
of course, but hypothetically, their other 12 home games would have a higher average as well. Just putting ideas out there and (as your post helps to indicate) there are other things that affect/drive attendance across a season than just the newest team in the league, or the team leading (by a large margin in this case) amongst average attendances for each team in MLS. as for the "league average without Seattle" -- was that adjusted average computed by only removing Seattle's home games, or did it also factor in removing the attendance data for Seattle's road games as well? expansion is a good (great) thing. having 2009's attendance data track fairly comparably to 2007's data is also a solid thing for MLS.