No. Third time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_League_Soccer_attendance#Historic_average_attendances
They've also had two games at Portland this season and only got 47,000 at home to the Timbers as they were crap at the time. That makes a big difference: Average attendance (home vs. Portland) 2012 - 43,144 (66,452) 2013 - 43,938 (40,150 and 67,385) 2014 - 43,734 (64,207) 2015 - 44,247 (41,451 and 64,358) 2016 - 42,636 (53,302) 2017 - 43,666 (47,362 and 51,796) 2018 - 40,517 (47,521) Also, it seems like the later they play Portland in the season the bigger the attendance.
I wonder how long it will be until Seattle meets Portland in the Western Conference finals. Will be a sight to behold.
Watching the Argonauts playing in a half-empty BMO Field makes me wonder if we MLS fans take attendances a bit too seriously.
Yes we do but a lot of us remember the days of 5k or smaller amounts of butts in the seats and lots of under 10k announced attendances.
Pretty common. KC, NY, Colorado, Chicago, Dallas, Miami, Tampa Bay, Chivas...happened pretty often. There were 12 times in the first 19 years that at least one team AVERAGED less than 10k. At least one of those years 2 teams averaged less than 10k. So yeah, it was pretty common. In those years there were often multiple sub 10k games each week. KC played in a little over 10k baseball stadium for a few years. SJ played in just over 10k stadium for 8 years. Dallas played in 11k stadium for a year. I don't know of anyone playing in a sub 10k stadium for more than a game or two. 18 of the first 19 years at least one team averaged less than 12k. It wasn't until 2015 that all teams averaged over 15k. Again this was based on tickets distributed. So some of the crowds were much less than 10k. Less than 10k was a metric we watched with great interest here for a very long time.
On Red Bulls Attendance: How does one make one of those shrug Emojis? Cause that's all I got on the subject. The fanbase is stable for the most part, the fan experience at the stadium is fine, the team is great... I guess there hasn't been a MASSIVE outreach to people outside the fanbase? I've seen the odd ad on local tv and such but they mostly cater to their own more than anything else. It's harder to reach out to people in this market, there's just so much going on at once that getting your product to stand out from the crowd of other s#it is difficult. And then there's the usual "too far" bit, which is nothing new and kind of unavoidable. Matters of attendance are the same as they ever were. But we're fine. Really. I think it's great that the team is able to keep a solid sized base in this crowded ass market with little that's new and shiny about us. They just got to keep providing the base a good experience and team and let things grow naturally by word of mouth, family relation, etc. Unless they sign a HUGE name nothing will change quickly here.
100% agree. I think there is a minor problem MLS has not really been able to solve - how can any of the original MLS teams generate the same level of excitement, engagement, interest as the expansion teams? It really just feels like the lack of "newness" is holding some teams back. The only solution I can really think of is a full-blown rebrand and just spending tons of money on marketing and outreach for a few years. A huge-name signing would help as well. This advice is really for any of the originals.
19775 at Gillette. One more home game for New England, and traditionally that one is a huge crowd. Will that happen this year, regardless of the relative importance (or lack thereof) of the game?
I believe it's because of unused tickets during the season, so yes they will have a big crowd 30-35k.
I think a full rebrand, including a name change, is tough for the 5 remaining originals that haven't rebranded at this point (Revs, United, Galaxy, Rapids, Crew, throw in the Fire if you want to make 6). There's a lot of history baked into those names All but the Revs (sorry) have won MLS Cups under that name. I could see a complete logo replacement, change of colors, etc. but I think the names are going to stick. And they should.
I agree - im not actually advocating for it. My point is I don't know how the current Rapids or Crew get to the point where they have crowds of 40K regularly. However if they had never had a team and were adding one as an expansion team, i bet they absolutely could. There seems to be some inherent marketing advantage to something genuinely new when it comes to this league.
An alternative to a rebrand would be a relaunch. Lego successfully relaunched in the 1990s after losing $300 million in a single year whereas a company called "backrub" rebranded itself as "Google". (I backrubbed that).
Some attendance related data. League average ticket price is $35 - Tfc is $45, MTL is $32 Atlanta generates $2m in game day revenue, while MTL earns $500k. MTL has about 9k season ticket holders. https://www.tsn.ca/saputo-says-impact-losing-millions-per-season-1.1191058 Not sure the context of some of this data, such as the average prices. Is that list prices or actual revenue per ticket?
Probably worth noting that the MLS average is in US dollars and TFC’s and Montreal’s average is in Canadian dollars.. So the MLS average is currently $45 Canadian, meaning Montreal is $13 Canadian below average.
I'm not so sure. They first reference him speaking in regards to USD. You would expect all related figures in the same paragraph to be in the same form. At the same time, with it being a Canadian outlet, all $ references are CDN$ by default, so it is conflicting to me. Your interpretation sounds more plausible to me because if he was making a point of being so far below average, a gap bigger than $3 seems likely.
Other articles converted the MLS average to Canadian dollars and the TFC and Montreal averages stayed the same.
Thanks for the responses. I have noticed when ive watched games this year there seems to be emptier stadiums then what ive remembered over the last several years. Maybe the newness has weared off some of the newer teams and newer stadiums. MLS signed some big name players this year so that has created publicity for the league so i guess its hard to put a finger on.
My own theory is that the publicity and media coverage of expansion clubs is detrimental to interest in other clubs. Of course that can be reversed by a big DP signing, or shiny new stadium but the Schweinsteiger and Howard effects wore off pretty quickly.
Based on my observation I think the Schweinsteiger and Howard type players have always had a pretty limited/short term affect. I think it takes the Beckhams, Zlantans and dare I say Messi/Ronaldo type names to move the needle for any extended amount of time. Some of the markets do really well with simply putting a winning team on the field (maybe a few medium level names too). Some don't.
For some markets, a Blanco is enough. Though I don't know a Mexican player who is as popular as Blanco was now... Chicharito? We'd probably need to make him the highest paid player in the league to get him here.