You mean like the underdogs of Manchester United, Arsenal, and Liverpool (All American owners). There are Americans that own teams lower down the table and pyramid as well, but that's mostly because the teams at the top have gotten so expensive. They aren't buying the clubs because they are underdogs, they are buying them because that is what they can afford. MLS fandom is largely limited to just a person's local team. If there isn't a team local to a person, it is just as easy to flip on the TV and watch a Premier League game as it is to watch an MLS game and, given the better players and higher prestige of the Premier League, that wins out. Most US fans of Euro teams are fans of the big clubs and don't particularly care about the mid to lower tier clubs.
i am talking about fans not owners me i like inter but also am interested in salernitana and venezia for relegation battle. like i said having pro/rel and spot for champions league concacaf one will get more attention and more interest by fansnot less. so you get relegated so what peole will still go to games untill you get to 1st division
US fans generally aren't following bottom of the table teams. Ratings for games that don't involve at least one top of the table team are significantly lower than games that involve at least one.
I'll also note that there is a significant drop in attendance even in pro/rel leagues where there aren't competing sports.
I think this is a little hard to predict: people go to Indy XI and Sacramento Republic games in decent numbers despite having “major league” alternatives. Even the Rowdies and Phoenix , who have a lot of top flight teams (Tampa even had an NBA team this year) get good attendance, especially Phoenix. And you’d have to think that if they had a chance to play their way out of division 2 (and this was, after all, the Championship matchup last year), there would be even more interest. So I guess I don’t see this supposed truth about American sports actually bearing out in practice. Meanwhile nobody is actually going to the Dynamo or Fire.
Top Ten in USL att has a running theme for most clubs: https://soccerstadiumdigest.com/2021-usl-championship-attendance/
Not to the level of the MLS teams. Every lower division club that has made the jump to MLS has seen a corresponding jump in attendance. The reverse of that would also be true. That doesn't mean they'll drop down to zero, but the Sounders, Atlanta, TFC, Portland, etc aren't drawing multiple tens of thousands to their games if they aren't in the top division. Drop them down to the lower division and some of those markets would be lucky to attract 10k if the stay is prolonged.
Maybe, but Cincinnati drew multiple tens of thousands in USL. Besides, if any of these teams you’re mentioning had the prolonged performance that would warrant an extended stay in the lower leagues, their attendance would suffer as well.
Some of it is novelty. Some of Orlando's attendances aren't much higher than when they first moved to Orlando in USL.
In fairness.. Have you seen the record of the Reds and Bengals?? (Okay, I have no idea what their record is, just seemed like the appropriate joke to make). Except if you look at the drop that teams see in pro/rel leagues it's pretty significant and much faster. Alternatively, so is the jump if/when a team is promoted.
And case in point on this, the final home games of Heinze’s tenure at Atlanta were in front of lots and lots of empty seats.
Yes. But have you seen pictures from most lower division teams? Obvious exceptions being England and Germany, of course.
They've have one of the lowest payrolls for years. Those empty seats should be a warning to all MLS owners about investing in their teams and respecting their fans. Houston finished rock bottom in the Western Conference last year and they're probably going to finish down there again. They haven't made the playoffs since 2017. After years of filling the bottom tier at BC Place it looks like "meh!" year after year is finally catching up with the Whitecaps too. There's also the Covid effect. As I've said before watching sports is habit forming. Once you get out of the habit there has to be a good reason to go back.
I think this is making my point, really. When the argument that attendance drops when a team gets relegated, somehow what doesn’t get mentioned is that MLS attendance also drops a lot for teams that absolutely would get relegated in a pro/rel system. And, wouldn’t you know it, attendance in USL tends to be best for teams that are more successful. But I don’t know why we think it’s vitally important to preserve the Quakes or the Whitecaps place in D1 because the fans wouldn’t follow them when, for some reason, they’re sticking with them when they consistently suck. Except they’re not doing that either, so…
[QUOTE="Expansion Franchise, post: 39919106, member: 309798". But I don’t know why we think it’s vitally important to preserve the Quakes or the Whitecaps place in D1 because the fans wouldn’t follow them when[/QUOTE] Come now ... THIS is a straw man
Dynamo, the Earthquakes and Whitecaps fans stuck with them for a long time, probably longer than they deserved.
really? https://www.transfermarkt.nl/nac-breda/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/132 NAC Breda (former club of EPB) in our second tier: Attendances also including Eredivisie stints (note: last two numbers arenot worthwhile to look at as these are corona time restrictions numbers): https://www.transfermarkt.nl/nac-breda/besucherzahlenentwicklung/verein/132
Come now ... THIS is a straw man[/QUOTE] How is this a straw man? The argument is that American fans wouldn’t follow them if they got relegated due to fact that they have been terrible for years, which doesn’t exactly address the effect being terrible for years has on their respective popularity. Cementing their place in D1, despite being bad teams with terrible ownership (Whitecaps, especially) doesn’t entrench MLS in these markets because there are better alternatives for soccer fans. “Support your local club” only goes so far if the club does absolutely nothing in return, which is the problem with the closed league model. And I don’t see how the bar that the argument “soccer isn’t popular enough here to support relegation” sets is supposed to get raised as long as you have perennially bad teams sitting in the major markets they’re supposed to be cultivating.
Times like this I wish I had created sockpuppets to give more reps.... Creating a real 2nd division that bridges the <10k USL attendance mark and the >15k MLS mark wouldn't be good for business, if the business is retaining a closed system....so keep the bloated 1st division with underperforming teams....
To be fair the drop off in attendances has been exacerbated by Covid because: - season ticket holders didn't renew in 2021 - people got out of the habit of going to games - health risks Would you take your kids to a crowded stadium? We went many years without a reported attendance of under 10k.
Another disingenuous statement alert. Why even mention those teams there if you don't think there's an audience for both of them? What part of root, root, root for the home team, if they don't WIN is a shame do you not understand? Instead of sending teams to minor leagues for the unforgivable sin of having a bad season, they have a better chance at qualifying for the playoffs and winning other domestic and continental cup competitions than the chance of "oh well maybe we'll comeback and win a season then we'll get promoted assuming our better players don't get swooped up by bigger clubs and we won't have budget cuts!'" The key thing here is that every MLS team have a chance at winning MLS Cup/Supporter Shield. In Bundesliga is Bayern. In EPL is the Big Eight clubs. In Serie A is Inter/AC Milan or Juventus. In La Liga is Barcelona or Real Madrid. D.C. United had that weird season in 2013 where we were last place in the overall table but still won the US Open Cup and bounced back up in 3rd, 1st in the Eastern Conference. In theory if relegation were to play a factor in 2013, D.C. United would've fold or relocate. It took 20 years to get a soccer stadium rolling along. The 2013 result greatly affected performance as D.C. United had a huge roster turnover which led to the good 2014 season result and CCL birth. A league of ~30 teams operating under the first division isn't "bloated"... Is NBA, NHL, NFL and MLB bloated? I mean most of them are even expanding to 32 teams.
It’s not 2013, so frankly what happened to DC United then is completely irrelevant now. As far as “root, root, root for the home team”, I think a history of not dealing with sexual harassment in your organization throws that out the window. And I frankly don’t buy that any team can win the MLS Cup: in the last decade these three teams we’re talking about haven’t qualified for the playoffs half of the time, in a league where half of the teams qualify for the postseason. These are not teams that would be punished for “one bad season”: they are perennially inept.