Wilmington finishes at 2,326, a 26% drop from last season. Of teams that have finished their 2014 home seasons, Wilmington is way down, Harrisburg is way up (34%, though still low) and Richmond is slightly up (6%). Arizona finished 56% ahead of Phoenix's final average from last year.
Maybe I am way off... but it is really hard seeing Wilmington staying in USL Pro with those types of attendance numbers. USL2 was a nice fit for a team like Wilmington from a travel and competition standpoint. Not surprising that the Charlotte Eagles saw the writing on the wall (pun intended) and will be dropping down to PDL... will the Hammerheads follow their lead?
New majority owner, new GM. Too early to tell just yet. USL Pro's smallest market, to be sure, but as long as Richmond and Charleston are around, they're not in huge danger just yet. That club really matters to people there, which is a big key. I love Wilmington and hope they're able to stay in DIII. They do need to do something about a venue, though. (Supposedly AZU's owner told STHs the other night that everybody in USL Pro has to be in an SSS by 2020, which I don't see happening.)
Don't know. Second straight year of decline. New majority owner. New GM. They had a trend like this before, right before they went away for a year.
I know they had a similar issue as Harrisburg had last season with weather weather, I know the recent Orlando match was a make up match and a couple others had sever rain (or threat of rain, which keeps most families away) I'd have to check but I recall one of there guys talking about a higher number of non-saturday matches this season.
3919 in Charleston last night with rain. (and some cement truck dumping its load on one of the main arteries through Charleston, a 20 min commute turned into 2:30 journey) Dayton reports 630
2013: 6 Saturdays, 6 Fridays, 2 Wednesdays 2014: 8 Saturdays, 4 Fridays, 1 Wednesday, 1 Thursday Also, Charleston finishes 6% ahead of last year's average, while Dayton finishes 29% down.
Oddly enough, that Thursday game in particular did them no favors because it was originally scheduled for July 3 and - you'd assume - would have had some Independence Day context whcih would bring some expectations of a decent gate. But a hurricane came through and they had to reschedule it for seven weeks later and it only drew 1,784.
Charleston finishes down 7.5% in their final pro campaign. Orlando finishes down 41% in their final DIII campaign. (Smaller venue, 26 miles from where they were, outside town, etc.) Pittsburgh finishes down 18% in their second year at Highmark and with the whole bankruptcy/not a good team thing. The league will finish over 3,000 for the first time in history. And Sacramento's 11,293 average is obviously a DIII record, making them the first DIII team to average over 10k (and only the fourth lower-level team to do so after Rochester, Montreal and Portland...Indy will join that group this year).
5,814 in Rochester. The Rhinos finish down 10% from the average (announced*) of a year ago. Orange County's last game is the only one I'm missing (from league teams), but I can't imagine it'll make much difference. USL Pro averages 3,095 overall at the moment, 3,126 without the handful of MLS reserve team home matches and 2,494 without Sacramento. *Yes, we know.
Good game and super day weather wise to finish the regular season. WOOOOW (5,814 announced?)...thats crazy ridiculous...wow. I took a buddy who hadn't been to a game all season and 5 minutes before start time he looked around the stadium from our standing point (under the scoreboard area) and said "what the hell is going on here?... there's no one here on a beautiful Sunday afternoon,what happened to soccertown ?" I have no idea where they even come up with these numbers anymore... just mind blowing. Now its on to LAG II
Don't have OC's last attendance figure, but we can guess it was in the 500-700 range. So, with that, here's what I have. Please correct any numbers that I have that are wrong; Of the teams that were in the league last year (including Arizona United in that) 5 of them had better attendance figures than last year: Arizona +773 Richmond: +31 Charleston +322 Harrisburg +409 OC Blues +205 (Unbelievable... lol) 6 teams had worse attendance figures compared with last year: Pittsburgh -779 Dayton -209 (Wow!) Orlando -3,054 (Different, smaller venue) Rochester -521 Wilmington -809 Charlotte - 146 New teams: Sac Republic killed it with a 12,611 average LAG II not good at all with an average of 607/game OKC Energy finished 5th in the league with 3,784
Sacramento's average was actually 11,293. And OKC finished fourth, not fifth. And the Galaxy II isn't about to go out of business, though Dayton could, I suppose. Actual numbers: Sacramento.......11,293 Rochester.........5,329 (-9.7%) Orlando...........4,743 (-41.1%) OKC...............3,784 Charleston........3,770 (+6.1%) Pittsburgh........2,686 (-17.9%) Richmond..........2,679 (+6.0%) Arizona...........2,395 (+56.3%) Wilmington........2,326 (-26.5%) Harrisburg........1,949 (+33.9%) Orange County.......760 (+5.8%)(1 game missing) Charlotte...........747 (-7.5%) LA..................597 Dayton..............533 (-29.3%) LEAGUE............3,126 (+16.8%)
Any rumors, that any of the teams will fold? I'm curious about Orange County, their attendance is low, new teams are coming in, and they don't have a partnership (yet..)
If you want to look at Orlando's numbers another way, we averaged 89.5% capacity this season. That's up 77.2 percentage points. I could always be wrong, but I somehow doubt either DDL or the Blues are going to fold. They just don't seem to care about attendance, though OC did have some positive signs this year. Neither does Los Dos, it seems.
I'm not sure the MLS teams will get good attendance. Maybe a couple of them, but the goal of the teams isn't necessarily to make money for the team via attendance.