The home opener against Toronto this season was the lowest in team history, but not at all surprising considering it was also the lowest temperature in Talen Energy Stadium, by 9 whole degrees! Yearly Average (Home Opener)---[MLS Season Average] 2010: 19,254 (34,870)---[16,675] 2011: 18,259 (18,591)---[17,872] 2012: 18,049 (19,074)---[18,807] 2013: 17,869 (18,160)---[18,608] 2014: 17,631 (18,651)---[19,151] 2015: 17,471 (18,002)---[21,574] 2016: 17,519 (17,027)---[21,692] 2017: ? (16,795) Also last season was the first season we had a higher attendance than the previous year!
Yeah weather!!!! Except attendance announced is tickets sold, not turnstile counts.... The attendance is lower because sales are off. If 4/8 bounces back, maybe there's a lot of weather watchers who bailed on buying yesterday. I think it's lower because interest is waning.
Agreed. The weather kept people who bought tickets away, but that announced figure was what was already purchased. One thing that did get hurt, was the walk-up attendance which had to have been non-existent in that weather (and people want MLS to go to the Euro schedule? Oh, yeah, let's have a blast in February freezing our junk off...although this February was insanely warm.) We are now preparing for Snowmageddon this week! Aggghhh!
There's a direct correlation between bad weather and attendance paid. Every time it rains, it's in the 15K range, weekdays and cold are usually in the 16K-17K, and then beautiful days are usually at least 18K. Although I am always surprised how much weather does affect it.
I'm not at all surprised by this. Lots of people who would normally take their kids for a family outing on a nice day would never take younger children to a cold weather game. They would spend the whole game listening to them complain about the cold and warming up in the restroom, then end up leaving early after spending all that money on tickets. All the STH around us who brought their kids on Saturday left at halftime because of the cold.
Weather is the biggest factor in Union attendance. Also, any game that isn't already included in season tickets (Open Cup) tends to under-sell even if it's a semifinal or final.
Philadelphia has been anything but welcoming to Jack and his...crew. #BlackSails pic.twitter.com/kcClgxEgI6— Black Sails (@BlkSails_STARZ) March 13, 2017
15,437 vs Portland. A Saturday night on a pretty nice day vs one of the best teams in the league. Yep, the fans have officially stopped caring. Maybe it will bounce back over the next two games, but I can't imagine it will. Yikes.
Those numbers are guarded more closely than the Union's discovery list. The picture the Orlando Magic tweeted that inadvertently revealed their off season plans immediately reminded me of the Union
They did put it up on the board. Easy to miss when you're watching the home team hoof the ball downfield and hope someone gets on the end of it.
Ha, true. Plus I was too busy wishing I went to the Phillies game instead, and figuring out if we could show up fashionably late on the way home.
I was there Sat against Portland and kept thinking how thin the stands were looking...so maybe the ownership/management will start to notice that people aren't up for a lackluster team getting lackluster results on top on not wanting to pay $11 for a Friggin Lager...
So after looking into it yesterday, I found out the lowest attended 2016 home game was against Orlando on April 8th, and the highest attended one was home to NYCFC in late April. This year, match on April 8th against Portland was extremely low and looking to bounce back at home against NYCFC. Should be a good test to see if people actually are done with the team or not. Although the match is on Good Friday, so I'm not expecting any miracles this year...
What I want to know is the season-ticket holder number. There used to be a waiting list, right? Haven't heard anything about that in a long time.
It has been 12k, last I heard they talk about it around 10k with full and partials combined. Like 2 9 gamers is 1 full,etc. The full list is probably 5k at this point.