Americans have bought more tickets in the latest sales phase for the Russia 2018 World Cup than any nation apart from the hosts.🇷🇺 216,134 🇺🇸 16,462 🇦🇷 15,006🇨🇴 14,755🇲🇽 14,372🇧🇷 9,962🇵🇪 9,766🇨🇳 6,598🇩🇪 5,974🇦🇺 5,905🇮🇳 4,509 pic.twitter.com/uuEb1sO3N8— CNN Football (@CNNFC) April 3, 2018
Thought I'd have another go. There are a lot of excuses made not to follow MLS, most of them spurious. The single-entity approach is seamless. MLS fans love their clubs and there are good owners and bad owners just like in any other league. But that goes for any club. If you go to most cities with soccer clubs in England you'll see Man Utd, Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal shirts everywhere. I'm sure it's the same in Scotland with Rangers and Celtic. Wigan fans proudly chant "I support my local team", being a minority in their own town. There are many factors involved. For instance, people want to watch the best teams and players. Manchester United claim to have 108 million fans in China. How many of those watch CSL? The dominance of La Liga and EPL affects support for local teams everywhere. I also think that MLS marketing is crap, particularly in engaging fans outside of MLS cities. Hence about 3,500 (ignore the official figure) turned out to watch NYCFC in Hartford. In that sense you're right about fans not feeling a connection. A lot of that comes down to ownership too. Bad owners, fewer fans, while good owners fill stadiums. I don't feel any differently about NYCFC as a club than I do about Notts County. Otherwise ownership is seamless to people who watch the league. That goes for a lot of the original MLS teams. I think fans at most expansion teams feel a closer connection. But KC, RSL and to a certain extent San Jose have proven that it's possible to turn that around. I'm sure Columbus would fill their stadium if they had a progressive owner. Liga MX has had the issues mentioned with teams not being able to hack it in the top-flight. It's one of the reasons they've suspended promotion and relegation. I'm shocked at that comment. There difference between the highest payroll and the lowest payroll is nothing compared to other leagues. Teams can spend whatever they want. Toronto choose to spend > 50% of revenue on salaries, which is similar to the Premier League, and a lot lower than CSL, while Seattle and Portland choose spend 15% of revenue on salaries and are two of the best supported teams in MLS. Barcelona's payroll is 17.5 x greater than Las Palmas PSG's payroll was 16 x that of Troyes Manchester United's payroll is 6.5 that of Burnley's. Toronto's payroll is 5x that of Houston's Those points you disagree with have been made over and over again and the vast majority of posters in these forums would agree. A few years ago RSL took a decision to spend $60 million on an academy/training center (the eventual cost was $ 78 million). The includes lodging and a high school on-site. In 2016 RSL finished second to last in the Western Conference. 2 additional losses would have seen them "relegated". So in a pro/rel scenario what would they have spent their money on, the best soccer academy in the country, or signing players in an attempt to avoid relegation into the abyss that is called USL?
Yet they don't need a connection to support Man United or Barcelona. It sounds like an excuse to me. If you go to "big soccer nations" and ask people why they support their local team, they'll say "because it's my local team". They don't need any greater connection than that which comes from following said team. They're not dating. This isn't the ****ing Bachelor. You don't need a "spark" or "chemistry". Just buy a ticket, go to the match and route for the team. The only times I see or hear the kind of reasons your giving, is when there's another agenda.
TV ratings averaged about 9,000 viewers a game, which a Charter Communications spokeswoman said represented a gain. Yet it is still far below expectations for a team that signed a 10-year, $55-million broadcast deal in 2011. http://www.latimes.com/sports/soccer/la-sp-galaxy-soccer-baxter-20180224-story.html
I told you, with those that don't support the Galaxy, they consistently tell me that it is due to the standard. Many others have ties to Mexican clubs, particularly Chivas and Club America, who predate and compete with MLS clubs on a regular basis. If I'd moved to the Netherlands instead of the US, I'd have been less likely to support a team there in the same way I do the Galaxy, because they would potentially play competitive games against Man United.
It's a pity although EPL claims there are about 170 million Premier League fans in China, the TV rating of EPL is only 1/3 of CSL in recently years, here is the stats officially published by CCTV5, who is major broadcaster of European football in China 2016 football tournament average TV rating in CCTV5 1 World Cup Asian Qualifier - 2.1 2 Euro 2016 - 0.96 3 AFC Champions League - 0.84 4 Team China Friendly - 0.71 5 Chinese Super League - 0.67 6 Chinese FA Cup - 0.65 7 English Premier League - 0.18 8 German Bungdesliga 9 UEFA Chanpions League 10 Italy Serie A the CSL published domestic TV and internet audience numbers of 2017 season, total TV audience is 624 million and online viewer number is 1.212 billion
Sorry, thought you were talking about attendance. Those are the Spectrum SportsNet LA figures, a regional channel only available on cable on certain packages. Consider that that channel is struggling for viewership period. The Dodgers are only pulling a little under 50,000 viewers on that channel, which puts it in perspective. Consider also that the home games that are broadcast on that network, also lose viewers because Galaxy fans will physically be at the game.
LAG are on the Lakers Spectrum channel which is available on all the major cable and satellite providers. The Dodger channel is only available on Spectrum. Lakers get a good audience on Sportsnet When compared to last season’s rolling average, the network’s household ratings for live Lakers games are up 11 percent (1.82 vs. 1.64). Moreover, Spectrum SportsNet has seen a 22 percent increase (1.82 vs. 1.49) when compared to the 2016-17 final season average. http://www.lakersnation.com/lakers-...ortsnet-pregame-coverage-postgame/2018/02/21/
There was a poll on reddit asking why soccer fans in LA support LAFC over LAG. The #1 response was that they never felt a connection with LAG. #2 was geographic location. The standard wasn't even in top five.
Yes. I should have made that more clear. It was a poll for lafc fans for why they chose lafc over LAG.
I did some fiddling myself. Number of boys playing major sports in the US (hockey excluded). The football axis is on the right. High school boys playing soccer with annual % increase. 2003 345156 8.7% 2004 349785 8.7% 2005 354587 8.6% 2006 358935 8.5% 2007 377999 8.7% 2008 383561 8.8% 2009 383824 8.7% 2010 391839 8.8% 2011 398351 8.9% 2012 411757 9.2% 2013 410982 9.2% 2014 417419 9.2% 2015 432569 9.6% 2016 440322 9.7% 2017 450234 9.9% Increase in number of boys playing high school soccer by state 2003-2017 State 2003 2017 Increase % GA 7750 11961 54.3% SC 4121 6306 53.0% FL 12767 19522 52.9% CO 5624 8321 48.0% UT 2693 3947 46.6% KY 4580 6415 40.1% NC 8928 12401 38.9% CA 38501 52795 37.1% DE 1556 2104 35.2% NJ 14666 19683 34.2% WV 1560 2034 30.4% NE 2315 2980 28.7% VA 8082 10359 28.2% NM 1967 2499 27.0% RI 1435 1820 26.8% OR 5067 6421 26.7% NV 1841 2320 26.0% IN 7349 9210 25.3% IA 5068 6302 24.3% ID 1737 2139 23.1% KS 3480 4271 22.7% WA 9212 11301 22.7% IL 17082 20946 22.6% MO 7317 8850 21.0% MS 3321 3990 20.1% MN 7957 9419 18.4% HI 1550 1793 15.7% MD 5882 6769 15.1% WI 9086 10354 14.0% MA 12531 14031 12.0% CT 6598 7382 11.9% OH 15618 17342 11.0% PA 18235 20125 10.4% NY 22677 23213 2.4% MI 14416 14541 0.9% ME 4238 4212 -0.6% NH 3177 3070 -3.4% VT 2587 1101 -57.4% Other SD 0 713 DC 155 924 496.1% MT 352 848 140.9% WY 669 878 31.2% AK 829 952 14.8% ND 644 649 0.8% The expansion effect? SchYear State Boys_Participation 2002/2003 WA 9212 2003/2004 WA 9204 2004/2005 WA 8154 2005/2006 WA 9449 2006/2007 WA 9999 2007/2008 WA 8844 2008/2009 WA 8745 2009/2010 WA 10283 Sounders 2010/2011 WA 10417 2011/2012 WA 10337 2012/2013 WA 10451 2013/2014 WA 10169 2014/2015 WA 10354 2015/2016 WA 9770 2016/2017 WA 11301 SchYear State Boys_Participation 2002/2003 FL 12767 2003/2004 FL 12666 2004/2005 FL 13392 2005/2006 FL 12389 2006/2007 FL 14173 2007/2008 FL 13392 2008/2009 FL 13918 2009/2010 FL 14034 2010/2011 FL 14468 2011/2012 FL 15169 2012/2013 FL 14161 2013/2014 FL 15769 2014/2015 FL 15987 2015/2016 FL 16178 OCSC 2016/2017 FL 19522 SchYear State Boys_Participation 2002/2003 TX 22244 2003/2004 TX 21898 2004/2005 TX 21976 2005/2006 TX 22321 2006/2007 TX 24384 Dynamo 2007/2008 TX 27043 2008/2009 TX 27439 2009/2010 TX 27502 2010/2011 TX 27502 2011/2012 TX 34482 2012/2013 TX 34063 2013/2014 TX 35506 2014/2015 TX 37452 2015/2016 TX 37989 2016/2017 TX 38491 No correlation in other states. Source: http://www.nfhs.org/ParticipationStatics/ParticipationStatics.aspx/#sportSearch
Telemundo average audience for Mexico vs. Germany: 6.56 million (most-watched sporting event in network history)Across all platforms: 7.4 million.Peaked at 8 million.— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) June 18, 2018 Telemundo averaged 6.56 million viewers for Sunday's Mexico-Germany match, for a total of 10.5 million U.S. viewers when combined with FS1's number— Seth Vertelney (@svertelney) June 18, 2018
Here's a sign of soccer's growth in the United States:Yesterday's Germany-Sweden game drew the largest ever audience for an English-language broadcast of a non-USA World Cup group stage game: 5.636M.That is also bigger than the audience for the 1994 USA-Colombia game: 4.81M.— Jonathan Tannenwald (@thegoalkeeper) June 24, 2018
Should U.S. Soccer fans cheer for Mexico in this World Cup? Read a piece on SportRivalry.com about the topic! Let us know what you think. http://www.sportrivalry.com/podcasts/sportrivalry-com-at-the-mens-world-cup/
This past weekend's last-16 games were the four highest-rated Fox or FS1 matches of the #WorldCup so far:Croatia vs. Denmark on Fox: 5,912,000 viewers Uruguay vs. Portugal on Fox: 5,879,000 Russia vs. Spain on Fox: 5,116,000France vs. Argentina on Fox: 4,690,000— Seth Vertelney (@svertelney) July 2, 2018
That is surprising... Are those ex-pats living in the US of A? I know a couple of Brazilian-American that went to Russia and Idea if they went to experience the WC or they are following a particular team?