It's remarkable how many USL teams average over 5000 fans a game these days, especially given the markets the USL has lost to MLS in recent years.
How long do you expect 2018 to be the high mark for USL attendance? On one hand losing Cincinnati hurts, but with so many "2" teams dropping down it could balance out. Will 2019 be better or could it take years to average ~5K.
Sacramento will be leaving eventually... and from what I am hearing...Indy has tremendously inflated their numbers
Losing Cincy and Toronto 2 but gaining Austin, Birmingham, El Paso, Hartford, Memphis and Albuquerque.
They're at 4,982 now. Without Cincinnati, Nashville and Toronto, they'd be at 4,314. Remains to be seen how many other MLS2 teams will join League One next year, but it's likely some of next year's expansion teams will probably draw well. (It seems to be the trend.) I would not be surprised to see USL attendance continue to do well. 5k won't be far off. (But, more importantly, obviously, the league is stable and you don't really have to fret every year whether or not your club will be around next year or not.)
Possibly, but talent isn't exactly the number one determiner of attendance. Unless thousands of people I'm not aware of are going to Cosmos B games. (I would hope our second division in 2018 would have more talent than in 2009, regardless of what it's called.)
Oh, for sure, talent on the field doesn't bring fans to the game ... I was just making a off topic comment. I think a talent increase on the field will make soccer fans (not casuals) come to more games than they otherwise would though ... but that's not what USL teams are after IMO.