Only one game in the English Championship League had a higher attendance today than TFC had in it's last game in Toronto. Our fans seem to think our game is worth supporting more than English fans do theirs. No we can't compete with the Premier League in quality or support but we're doing well for now.
and two teams in MLS have higher attendances than we do (DC and LA)... so three teams in MLS support soccer better than most CCC teams
what was the attendence for the TFC game? Theres no way it was a full house, even if they sold all the tickets.
Im assuming that Man U was the only club out of the big 4-5 clubs that had a home game today. Because if you think about it, the stadiums of most of the english clubs are not even close to old trafford or chelseas stadium (which I cant seem to remember for some reason)
i think they've sold out every single match! over 20k plus! and most of the time i would believe taht most if not all of them are sold. there's maybe one seat every two or three rows that doesn't seat someone.
This statistic would only be interesting if you had the attendance as a percentage of local population... i.e. Ipwich has a population of 118K and had 19K at their last home game. That's damn impressive and no MLS team is near that!
Before L.A. game, they only had 3 games over 20,000+ seats sold. If it weren’t for L.A. game, then they would be 3rd in the league in attendance.
He said Championship, not Premiership. The Championship is step two on the football pyramid in England. Cheers!
thats what I was thinking too. Our support compared to Englands is pathetic compared to maybe even up to the conference. Think about how many clubs are in England 100+ pro clubs. A lot of people support their local team regardless of their division. The whole of Canada and America only has 3 clubs with a higher aver. attendence than thier second division which alone includes 24 teams.
Any comparisons have to be within the context of soccer being their #1 spectator sport and soccer being our #5 (that's an optimistic guess) spectator sport. Soccer is the religion of the vast majority of English sports fans just as hockey is to us. That said, Torontonians have done great this year and Canadians did great during the U-20's. Definitely NOT pathetic! B
Announced as 20,190 I believe. If you look at attendance another way, that is percentage of seats sold, Toronto comes out as number one in the M.L.S. with over 100% of ground capacity sold. (Extra seats added etc,) Of course if a club builds, or occupies, a big stadium and it is only rarely filled then comparisons become meaningless. So if we stick with total attendance then we are doing fine......but hope to increase if the stadium is expanded later.
i didn't mean it like that, it seemed like the original poster was saying that we had somehow beat out the championship............ when in reality you have to consider that there are probably 120 pro clubs in England and 50 million people.
Agreed and understood. It's just such a strong word that I felt it needed a bit of a counter. I think we all know that we can't possibly compare ourselves to England in respect to support of our sport but at the same time, we've had some really nice growth and I just don't want that to be overshadowed by the inequity of the comparison.
MLSE and TFC may count number of seats sold, but that doesnt mean the actual attendance, I am seated at the midfield (east side) and last game there was only 5 guys in my whole row. So, this of course misleading. Ya ya, I know, MLSE misleading people, who'd have thunk it?
One has to remember that most of the British and European clubs have been in existence for well over a hundred years. They have generations of supporters to call on. Yet in all but top clubs MLS draw more fans. Crowds at our reserve games probably exceed the Scottish second and third divisions and many other clubs. So the point that I am making is that for a first year team we have done fantastically well in support. It is not a matter of lower prices either. We pay as much or more to see a game as they do in Europe. (I'm not talking about top price seats for Juventus, Bayern or Chelsea etc.)
They collect attendance stats when they scan your ticket in @ the gate. The numbers are real and aren't tickets sold. Every ticket is sold every game, for the rest of the season, the fluctuating number you see from 20,000 to 20,500 is the people who show up, whatever the case 20,000+ have always showed up (except Houston game, 1-0 for us...19,800+) and there is always 100-300 person difference.
I don't think you really understand how ticket sales tend to work. Of course there will be empty seats; that's the nature of a pro sport in general. Try watching a Man U or Liverpool game sometime and you'll see rows of empty seats in certain sections. Don't forget that scalpers have their fair share of tickets as well and they don't always tend to sell all of them. The crowds are fine at BMO and exactly how they should be. Nobody is misleading anyone.
Stamford Bridge. Well, there are quite a few Premiership teams with big stadiums. Most notably are Man City, Arsenal, Man United, Newcastle, Chelsea, Liverpool, Tottenham, and Aston Villa.
ya, and it's rather small, only 40 000 seats I believe for Chel$ki's stadium, but maybe that's why they jack up their ticket prices compared to ManUre, becasue we all know you arent paying for better football