So a few things about the Rapids' attendance: 1) It's a Wednesday night, which is self-explanatory. It's a school night for families and working individuals aren't keen on fighting rush hour traffic before the game and getting less sleep after the game. 2) Weather likely didn't play much of a roll at all. It was clear and pleasant in the hours leading up to kickoff, and there wasn't severe weather in the forecast. The heavy rain didn't hit until after kickoff, which would have been after most folks made a decision to attend the game. 3) Only the most invested fans are really going to the games these days. Most of the casual fans lost interest months ago. The damage was already done with Hudson's embarrassing start to the season...not to mention the many bad/losing seasons we've accumulated over the last decade. 4) Altitude getting pulled from the air by Comcast, Dish, and DirecTV has largely eliminated what little awareness there was in the Denver sports market that the season is even still going on. Zlatan or no, interest and awareness in the Rapids is probably close to an all time low. KSE has done (and continues to do) a massive amount of damage to this market.
As a Seattleite I laugh at the idea that it was raining hard during that game. I was sitting in it and it wasn't much more than a 15-20 minute drizzle in the first half at worst.
I belive the tally but last night we had a LOT of people mingling in the concourses like it was a lounge affair. Lot of ticket giveaways for the childhood cancer event (which was good) but I think a lot of them were 1st timers at the stadium and just wandered about.
37,722 in Seattle 25,218 in Portland 24,810 in Toronto 19,635 in Minnesota Bit disappointed in Seattle and Toronto considering what's at stake.
Thousands of Seattle fans walked out after a guy carrying an iron front banner was ejected at half-time. That's why it looked so empty.
What's at stake for Seattle? Another playoff trip? That gets a little old when you've done it every year you've been in MLS. But, as you noted in a subsequent post, things are getting a little testy between certain Sounders fans and the league over the Iron Front flag. I've seen several tweets from people saying their ticket rep said they've had several thousand ST tickets cancelled over it and that likely means those and other like-minded people aren't showing up at games this season either.