Atlanta will have at least one more full capacity game Portland's capacity will increase 4k Minnesota moves into a 19,400 stadium, they averaged 23k in 2018 Columbus get rid of Precourt so their attendance will increase Cincinnati joins the league 27-30k
Cannot resist poking the Fire (their/there). DC with a full year of Rooney/Audi and no 5k home dates should tick up a tad. LA with a full year if Ibra should tick up a tad from 24k. No Villa at Yankee Stadium & no Adams in NJ could mean a slight downtick in the Big Apple. Tad worried about Orlando. Colorado trying to score some goals will be fun. Overall, I will say slightly up, with Cincy, Portland, and Columbus being the main drivers and offsetting Minny's decline of 4k.
Philly looked good last year, especially at the end. Made the POs. I thought things would be looking up. What am I missing?
Fans are restless. A large, and vocal section of the fan base is upset that Curtin is back, the owners don't spend enough on players (DP name players), and the rest of the teams in the area are better (Eagles, Phillies on an uptick, Sixers)
Philly fans are always......restless. Phillies did NOT make the POs, I do not kniw how that is better. Under .500. 76ers are on implosion watch. They lost their depth to get Butler (RoCo & Saric), who will either leave or cause things to explode. Ilyasova & Belinelli have not been replaced. And Simmons cannot shoot. And then there is Fultz. Redick is 34. How are the Flyers doing? Eagles I will give you. But Foles > Wentz IMHO, and he is leaving.
The Union are the only Philly team I root for, as I am not originally from here. I'm just telling you how the Union are viewed in the Marketplace. Despite how poorly the Flyers have performed, their attendance is always among the best in the league. Their fans are loyal. The Phillies are on an uptick, and the NL East is a toss up at this juncture. They have as good a chance as any of the teams not named the Marlins to win that division. This town is an Eagles town first, second, & third. They won't implode. Butler wants a max deal............he won't get that if he destroys the Sixers. Plus......it's not looking like he was the entire problem in T-Wolves land............
There's not enough bandwidth to explain the issues of The Most Dysfunctional Team in North America (pat. pend.)...but the Wolves are better without Butler than with him.
A lot more midweek games then in year's past. Would imagine that will have a negative impact on averages around the league.
It will have an effect but there aren't as many extra midweek (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) games as I would have thought. 2018: 50 midweek games out of 391 total, 12.8% 2019: 69 midweek games out of 408 total, 17% That is an extra 19 midweek games which is less than 1 per week. Having an even number of teams helps this year since last year there were a lot of 11 or fewer game weekends. Hmm, I included the 4th of July midweek games both years. There are 4 more of those this year than there were in 2018. If you take those out the difference drops to 15 games.
Hopefully in the future, as more warm (Miami, Austin) or warmish (Nashville) teams are added, the increase in poorly attended mid-week games gets offset by less poorly attended cold weather games early in the season. Also, with Austin slated for 2021, I would expect #28 to be announced soon, possibly before March. And #29 & #30 to follow by the end of the year.
You wanna another bet? They will not announce 29 and 30 by the end of the year. Possibly 28, but not the other two. I am not saying they won't expand past 28...i am saying no way they announce 29 and 30 this calendar year.
I'd agree with this. #28 is likely to be announced. STL would be my guess. At most, the BoG meeting at MLS Cup might be the time they vote to expand past 28. But they won't be announcing teams past 28 this year.
#28 by the end of June. At the latest. #29 could drag on into January of 2020, but with the Cup moved up, I think it gets done before that. Also depends on who it is. STL + SAC gets done in 2019. Someone else (PHX) may take longer. No bet.
So in other words you are retracting your previous statement that #30 will be named by end of 2019 [emoji6]
I wouldn't be surprised if Sacramento is added fairly soon as the 28th team given they have finally got their last piece of the puzzle, a very deep pocketed owner, to go along with a substantial fan base, good demographics and a stadium plan in place. The Republic would also benefit due to a rivalry with San Jose in Northern California a little over 2 hours away.
Heads up, but today's The Athletic article on Providence Park expansion (behind paywall so I'm paraphrasing) specifically cites the capacity will go from 21,444 (I think they mean 21,144) to more than 25,000.
Found some numbers for recent USA January games. 2000 - USA - Iran Los Angeles 50,181 2001 - USA - China Oakland 8.903 2003 - USA - Canada Miami 6,549 2004 - USA - Denmark Los Angeles 10,461 (First of the modern January camps) 2006 - USA - Canada San Diego 6,077 and Los Angeles USA - Norway 16,366 2007 - USA - Denmark Los Angeles 10,048 2008 - USA - Sweden Los Angeles 14,878 2009 - USA - Sweden Los Angeles 9,918 2010 - USA - Honduras Los Angeles 18,626 2011 - USA - Chile Los Angeles 18,580 2012 - USA - Venezuela Phoenix (Same stadium as this year) 22,403 2013 - USA - Canada Houston 11,737 2014 - USA - South Korea Los Angeles 27,000 (sellout) 2016 - USA - Iceland Los Angeles 8,803 2017 - USA - Serbia San Diego 20,079 2018 - USA - Bosnia Los Angeles 11,161 Thus, I am not sure I understand what the attendance panic this year is all about. It's the lowest January crowd since the ancient days of... 2016.
All recent friendlies against Panama: 2015 Los Angeles 20,271 That's it. Perhaps US Soccer expected ~20k based on the other January game played at the stadium, and the other recent friendly against Panama.