Yeah, are all these complainers new to MLS or something? Most weeknight games fall well under 10K. If the league could average 13K on it's weeknight games this year, it would be a massive success. And for anyone who really is new to MLS, click this link and check out what type of numbers MLS drew to weeknight games last year. http://web.mlsnet.com/mls/schedule/index.jsp?year=2006&month=6 Just from a quick glance at this random sampling, you should be able to notice that the Wednesday numbers are almost all lower than the Saturday numbers.
Uhm... yeah. I'm still going with the person in a confined space (not a parade) who was acutally there Dude you just shot down your asanine argument in the first paragraph.
Ummm...follow the bouncing sarcasm. There aren't thousands of people in the car, restrooms and concourses. I was being facetious....dude Are you actually sugggesting that it is easier to determine the size of a crowd by craining your neck while standing in the middle of it versus looking at the whole crowd from a removed angle? Especially with bench seating it is impossible to determine with any reasonable certainty how many people are sitting on the same side of the stadium as you are. Now, as for the other side of the stadium, different story, but that is no different than the TV angle and certainly no better.
I'm saying that you can see much more of the stadium from inside the stadium than on TV. Tv you see the far side bleachers 90% of the time with occasional end zone shots and one, maybe two very quick press box shots per game. Plus, you can see into the concourses, too. So, yes, I believe you can actually get a better count if you're there than if you're not there. Silly me, I guess.
Dude! I believe you. I love when they sit in front of the screen counting each head on the screen to get that number. As a matter of fact I think that's exactly how attendance should be counted. By some Uro snob sitting in his arm-chair counting heads. Eat s@#$ and keel over knucks. Crewfighter, hope you enjoyed the game; and keep going.
A bit of perspective on Columbus: Imagine that same crowd in the OSU stadium. It would look almost as bad as the 8000 ghosts at Giants Stadium. It looked ok, not great, but not the embarassment of Giants, Arrowhead, Invesco, etc. Also, it was an entertaining game, with a new signing coming, and more star power on visiting teams coming. These are the good times. Leave your cares behind.
Clearly we have some folks with very little perspective on MLS attendance over the League's history. Crowds of close to 14k on a Weeknight are actually pretty good and a significant improvement over the early years. I remember teams getting 5 to 8k for a weeknight so 14k while not the 20k we would love to see is a solid showing. For a small market team without any major Name star, I think they are doing very well. What is much more interesting is to see what kind of attendance NY pulls tonight. Its an excellent matchup on a Saturday night for a NY team vastly improved from prior seasons.
Watching TV myself, I figured about 10K. (Crew Stadium is about 25K capacity, right?) 13K feels a little high, but I wouldn't call it absurd
Listed capacity is 22,555. The stadium would be 59% full if all of the 13,290 distributed tickets were used. I know these treads are a tradition here, but aside of the competition involved, I am not sure what the numbers are intended to represent. For those seeking to affirm that MLS is economically healthy, I don't see how you can ever draw that conclusion because the announced count does not represent paid tickets. For those curious about how many attended, it isn't a turnstile count, so again, I am not sure it is worth fighting about because the question can't be answered. The count is probably interesting to the extent it reflects the game experience itself. If the crowd is large and energetic, that energy usually transfers to the players and typically improves the quality of the match. The presentation also looks better on TV, and, generally, it makes the league look more professional to fans (and potential fans) who may tune in. If overall "presentation" is in fact what we are talking about, then honestly how full the stadium looks on TV is an important issue IMO. It is all well and good to say that "X" thousand distributed tickets is a good effort on a weeknight, but if a large percentage of the attendees spend much of their time at the concession stand (doing their best to enhance some of those revenue streams), it doesn't change the fact that the game still doesn't look as good on TV and that the crowd that remains is generally is less energetic. So, if indeed there were 13,000 or so at Crew Stadium, I agree that is a pretty good effort on a weeknight. I would also agree it didn't look as good on TV as it might have. Two cents.
We also can't draw conclusions because none of us have the in-depth knowledge of contracts and debt service and sponsorship revenue and other expenses that would lead to a logical deduction.
Not very many people standing behind the FSC pregame show. I guess that means there are less than 4000 there tonight.
I'm pretty sure you just talked right over the heads of 99% of the people that post in these weekly love-fests.
that seems to be an honest count. I woulda guessed 13,500. I reallly think you'll see attendance growth from that club this year.
gotta give RBNY some credit, they seem to be doing things the right way... got some good "name" talent, a player in Altidore who could be the posterchild for the next generation in American soccer players, and a new stadium underconstruction that looks like its gonna be the class of the league. hopefully the fans start jumping on the bandwagon.
The announcer just said 11,713 (i think) at Chicago. Also smaller than it seems. I guess I should stop picking on Columbus.
That too seems an honest count. Both the New York and Chicago clubs were loud as well. Two entertaining games.
On the one hand it's nice how good a 11.7k crowd looks on TV. On the other, it's really hard to understand what's happened to Chicago's great fan base...