Seattle - around 3000 (in a 70,000 seat stadium) Toronto - around 1500 You were saying? On the flip side: Portland - 10-12000? Vancouver - 5000 (in a 6000 seat stadium) Conclusion: It happens, but not all the time, and shouldn't be a gauge for MLS. Some major-league towns are lousy minor-league towns, where too many people have the "when MLS gets here, then I'll show up" mentality.
Unless the world is buying tickets, who cares what they see? Other than games from Germany and England, I see plenty of empty seats in most of the soccer games I watch on TV. Big deal. "Local" is such a strange word. "Local" in the United States often involves two teams that are farther apart than is physically possible in most other countries. Is "Local" Everton and Liverpool, Chivas and Atlas? Or are you talking about "Portland and Seattle"? Portland and Seattle are almost exactly the same distance apart as London and Liverpool. Is Fulham and Aston Villa a "Local" rivalry? The Seattle and Portland of the NASL have not returned. The Cosmos of the NASL will not return. Those three markets are now MLS markets. A look at the attendance for the NASL Timbers shows a peak during the second year and a quick decline with the team bouncing between 5k and 11k for the bulk (seven years) of the team's existence. The Sounders actually pulled quite well until the last couple seasons. I would be hard pressed to say the NASL Sounders attendance was "like Portland's"