2015 USL Attendance Thread

Okay let me be a bit more clear since those previous posts were on my phone.

I arrived at the 8% number by doing a few things:

1. I disregarded Sacramento entirely for to critical reasons: first, they sold out every single game so no meaningful conclusions can be drawn about reserve teams affect on attendance second, they switched stadiums mid season.

2. I treated the reserve teams and LA II because my premise at the time I did the calculations was that teams putting development above competition would dissuade fans of other teams from attending games against those teams. In other words, that there would be a decrease in attendance for these games.

3. I'm completely aware how other factors like weather and weekday vs. weekend could have on the findings, especially given a small sample, and that stuff is not included here but is in the data I'm tracking for this season.

 

FC Montreal 265
Arizona United SC 6,108

 

Complete nonsense.

Virtually none of the teams on a given team's schedule can move the needle based solely on name recognition. Most matchups have virtually no history behind them. The idea of a "playoff race" selling tickets to average fans when average fans could not tell you how the playoffs work is also nonsense.

Average fans just looking for a game to go to don't look at the standings. They look at the calendar.

 

Good crowd for Arizona United SC.

 

The Montreal figure is all the more odd given that the tickets to the games are free. Obviously Suputo does not promote Montreal II at all.

Given that all of the MLS II teams have losing records other than Seattle and Portland (some with very bad losing records others closer to .500) does anybody else think that MLS and the USL should consider moving the MLS II teams to the PDL or even setting up a separate MLS II league?

 

No.

No one thinks that.

Least of all MLS I/Os.

It's always so funny. When an MLS team had three bad crowds in a row, fans thought the solution was to move them right away.

Now - one month into the season, mind you - with none of the MLS O&O teams having played more than six games - the idea is that they can't hack it at this level (even though LAGII came within a whisker of making the final last year) and they need to be moved down to the PDL or moved into their own league.

You know what the point of these teams are? To make players better. Challenging them is better than having them play against each other only or against college kids (which would limit their season to the May 1 - early August timeframe). MLS teams want their young players in this environment. That is the complete point of the exercise.

So, no, no one else thinks that. That's silly.

11 of the MLS2 teams' 23 losses have been by the odd goal, and six have been to each other. MLS2 teams have won at Arizona and at Austin and gotten a draw at Charleston. They've had narrow losses to Arizona, Sacramento (who I've heard are pretty good), Colorado Springs, Richmond, Harrisburg, Oklahoma City and Tulsa.

The last two years, USL teams beat MLS Reserve teams pretty well, but those were teams often thrown together out of various pieces without a lot of consistent training or play. Independent teams are 16-5-2 against MLS2 teams so far. Which, again, is the point.

 

1,661 in Pittsburgh.

 

While you have pretty much put me in my place, I do take some exception to this part. In so far as soccer games are low scoring by nature (at least modern soccer), a 1-0 score line (or whatever the score was) is far from indicitive that the game was a 'narrow loss.'

 

I can't edit my post. Of course, I mean that a close score line does not indicate that the game play was close, which I assume is what you implied with the term 'narrow loss.'

 

Whitecaps FC 2 - 2,056
Hammerheads FC - 2,985
Rochester Rhinos - 6,184
Real Monarchs SLC - 1,001
Austin Aztex - 2,925
OKC Energy FC - 4,383
Louisville City FC - 4,877


62 games -212,331 total - 3,425 average
http://www.uslsoccer.com//ViewContent.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=32800&CONTENT_ID=1213866

 

90% of the time I think you're right ... but if someone's just looking for ways to fill their caendar and don't have other obligations (like kids and work activities) ... they may look at a schedule and try to go see the "best" game they can. Like I said ... small (and maybe VERY small) percentage.

Either way, my point stands ... taking anything from attendance from last years "vs Reserve team" is meaningless because they don't exist anymore. Yes, MLS 2 teams exist (in much higher capacity) ... but "Reserve teams" don't.

 

I understand that the main problem for the Rhinos isn't that the people of Rochester lost interest in soccer, but that they built the stadium on the 'poor side of town.'

 

Looks like the Whitecaps Usl farm team may settle in the 1000-1500 range eventually. They've started off well with 3208 and slipped a bit to 2056, both against good opponents as far as fan interest is involved with Toronto and Seattle Usl farm teams and those cities being traditional rivals for the MLS Caps. We'll get a better indication with the next game against OKC.

 

I have not knowledge of the city, but it's like a mile outside of downtown (if that) and it seems to have decent access off the highway ... so that suprises me. It's 3 blocks from the minor league baseball stadium.

 

but Sahlen's Stadium is less than a mile northwest of Frontier Field where they used to have 10 K crowds

 

From what I understand, the owner is quite a bit far down the incompetent path.

 

I've always read that he's more about having it as a hobby/toy on his shelf than he is about actually buiding something with it. Sad if true (either incompetance or neglect).

 

While that's fair in most cases, my point was this: these kids you want to shunt off to the PDL after a month aren't getting played off the park. And if they are, the scores aren't indicative of that. (Scoring being the way we, you know, determine who wins games and such.) And if they ARE, again, that's the freaking point. Coaches want these players exposed to a high level of play. They're not going to get that in the PDL or a league where they just play each other. (The last two iterations of the MLS Reserve League were that, and it was universally agreed that was not a great environment for development.)

And a blanket statement like "a 1-0 scoreline doesn't mean it was a close game" is also not applicable in all cases. If you would like to sit and watch 2 hours of every USL vs. MLS O&O game and give us your subjective opinion of who's overmatched and who can play, knock yourself out.

 

Man, you get everything wrong.

You don't know when teams came and went. You try to do history and you get it wrong. You don't know why MLS put teams in USL. And you're wrong about this.

The culpability flow chart on the decline of interest in the Rhinos is large and complex. As mentioned above, Sahlen's is not far from Frontier Field at all. The issues Rochester's ownership went through, the jumping over and back of leagues, the broken promises and a lot of other things all contributed to the Rhinos becoming a shell of their late 1990s selves.

 

Looks like attendance falls into five tiers, with the bottom tier basically consisting of MLS2 teams plus of course the Orange County Blues...

Attendance Home Average
SAC Republic FC 4 44296 11074

Rochester Rhinos 1 6184 6184
Arizona United SC 1 6108 6108
OKC Energy FC 2 11180 5590
Louisville City FC 3 15716 5239
Tulsa Roughnecks FC 4 20762 5190
Saint Louis FC 2 10281 5140

Charleston Battery 3 11750 3917
Real Monarchs SLC 2 7589 3794
Totals 62 212911 3434
Richmond Kickers 3 9848 3283
Portland Timbers 2 2 6168 3084

Austin Aztex 4 10612 2653
VAN Whitecaps FC 2 2 5264 2632
HBG City Islanders 1 2589 2589
Seattle Sounders 2 3 7662 2554
CS Switchbacks FC 2 5090 2545
WILM Hammerheads FC 3 7254 2418
CLT Independence 2 4416 2208
PGH Riverhounds 4 7754 1938

OC Blues FC 3 3697 1232
LA Galaxy II 4 4371 1093
NY Red Bulls II 4 2496 624
FC Montreal 3 1824 608
Toronto FC II 0 0 0

The average is basically 3500, and the "not embarrassing" bar is around 2000.

The MLS2 teams actually don't look so bad based on this. LA2 were terrible last year, which is the reasons a lot of USL fans didn't like the idea of adding other MLS2 teams. But they're not typical, only a few others are down in the basement with them. And the others at least could see some improvement, in addition to NYRB2 eventually playing in Manhattan, aren't Montreal and Toronto building stadiums for their second teams in other locations?

 

Yes, the stadium (originally called Paetec Park) isn't the problem, and the interest decline would take many long paragraphs to detail. I don't have either the time or the interest to get into it.

He's the vice president of a family owned bank that financed part of the stadium loan to the original owners (which was defaulted on). Having an interest in becoming a sports team owner at the time, he took over shortly after. I wouldn't call him incompetent, but he was (and still is to some extent) an inexperienced owner. He lives in another area of NY, and is basically an absentee owner these days for the most part. I have heard occasional rumors that he's willing to entertain offers for the franchise. A few years back, he stated publicly that he was willing to contribute $15 million toward a MLS franchise if additional investors could be attracted. Didn't happen obviously.

 

Those tiers also seem to line up fairly well with ( a ) ambition ( b ) resources ( c ) trying and ( d ) market size.

 

I was with you until market size... unless you're saying there's an inverse correlation there.

 

No, I'm saying that Charleston, for instance, is limited by what they can do by their market (and stadium) size. I didn't mean there's a correlation with all markets and size (Wilmington usually does well despite being the smallest market). I mean you aren't likely to see Charleston averaging 6,000 a game, but that does not mean they're not doing well. Because they are.