I caught this little bit: Attendance numbers were also down this season. The Crew averaged 16,250 a game placing them a very respectable third in the league. However this number is down almost 1200 fans a game from the previous season. This is only the second season that the Crew have averaged less than 17,000 since the Crew moved into Crew Stadium. The last season was back in 2000, which, of course, was Tom Fitzgerald's final full season at the Crew helm.
What must really disappoint the Crew front office regarding attendance is that through the early matches this year's attendance was ahead of last year's pace. The numbers for the final 67%-75% of the home schedule were seriously down.
Yup. Favored to win it all, fans show up. Team sucks and goes down, attendance goes down. And you'd think the first few games would have sucky attendance, because of the crappy weather.
Excellent summary by Walt. I wonder how much REAL attendance was down in the last half of the season. The Crew (and League) report tickets sold as attendence, but that # was nowhere near butts in seat attendance in the last few games.