We've got: Edmonton FC at Carolina Railhawks Fort Lauderdale Strikers at NY Cosmos Atlanta Silverbacks at Minnesota United Tampa Bay Rowdies at San Antonio Scorpions
But this time a crowd of 10,000 at the Hofstra University stadium in the New York suburbs will be considered a good start by Seamus O'Brien who is masterminding the Cosmos' rise from the ashes. http://www.fifa.com/worldfootball/clubfootball/news/newsid=2147875.html?intcmp=newsreader_news_box_2
dunno, though I do know what they said after their home opener http://www.startribune.com/sports/blogs/202052311.html
I like the the Cosmos' chances of hitting 10k better than pretty much anyone else in the NASL this season.
The NASL had good attendance during the spring and hopefully the trend continues with some big crowds this weekend for the second home 'openers'. So far this season, every club is up over last season except for the Scorpions. Will be interesting to see if the Cosmos can do the same thing. They averaged 12,817 last season. Seriously, I believe the Cosmos to be a box office bust if they don't average more than 10,000 a game. The other thing is tracking the 'Cosmos effect' on the road, if any. This can measured a couple ways. Cosmos' road attendance can be compared with the other seven teams or Cosmos' road fixtures can be compared to the other seven club's overall home averages. For match day one, I predict Carolina and Minnesota with around 5K, Scorpions top 7K, and the Cosmos come in at 8k.
I believe that their last home game (vs Atlanta) was already at the NSC , Blaine, Minnsesota, and that game they drew 6,5 K
Their 4th of July fireworks show may have had something to do with that. Still, I would expect a decent crowd up there tonight.
I hope the positive attendance trend from the Spring Championship continues into & through the fall. I also hope the Strikers turn things around and field a competitive team in the Fall Championship.
The additions of Gaul and Walker are promising, but I fear that the failure to get a quality striker may prove to be their downfall again. With Foley, Armstrong and Restrepo there 's certainly some creativity there, but to whom will they deliver the final pass?
As of two weeks ago 7500 tickets had been sold for the Cosmos opener, and they expect 2-3000 walk-ups. So a crowd of 10000+ seems more than likely.
that would be great, though not enough to break this NASL record ''the Scorpions drew 13,151 to their home opener against the Puerto Rico Islanders on April 15, 2012''
What is capacity at Cosmos stadium? I would not be surprised to see a sellout on August 10th for Rowdies vs Cosmos, but even less surprised by at least breaking our regular season attendance record at Al Lang. That would be three games of increased attendance in a row? I would be happy to see continued upward movement of attendance across the league. No one has to really top previous single game attendance marks, but I'd hope for above average numbers to help moving the dial north.
I was "occupying" Hofstra when they started the expansion. I believe it is around 15k. It looks like a capacity crowd, good for them.
And they would be fibbing. Or they don't know how to count. http://www.hofstra.edu/PDF/sports_mlax_ShuartStadium.pdf
The 15000 capacity is actually not true either, that is the capacity after they bring in temporary seating for one of the endzones (which they didn't for this game). There are actually a little less than 13000 seats there. If it wasn't capacity, it was only a couple hundred off.
The biggest crowd at Hofstra was 13.5K for a lacrosse final in 2011 according to the school. I've heard seated capacity is about that. Good crowd for F.cosmos but not the announced "sellout", the broadcast showed empty seats. Not the first team to fudge the term though we do it all the time. When we announce 25.5K it's usually 22K-23K.
So, depending where on Hofstra's website you look, you either get a 13k or 15k capacity. They do list stadium record as 13,477 in 2011. So that seems to validate the 13k number (the record crowd no doubt had some SRO). Don't worry about empty seats, as stated a billion times before, not everyone who buys a ticket shows up or is in their seat at any given time. Crowd shots are unreliable. That said, the Cosmos are full of it if they think that 11,929 is a sellout.
Does it really matter? 11,929 is a darn good number.. It will be interesting to see where they are at the end of the season.
Ya really, good grief. They drew 12k for their home opener. That is fantastic. And the crowd shots looked pretty great to me. Be happy for them and for the NASL. It was a good night.