the '07 average at this point ranked 9th in the twelve year history of mls... what i don't like about the numbers so far is the variance shown by the high %<10k and %>20k. that's too hit or miss. i'd prefer a steady flow of fans for 'regular' games. in any case, mls can't set a record each and every year. if '08 is a bit ho-hum, it's not the end of things.
While I wouldn't call it the end of the world, I think you have to acknowledge it isn't great for the league either. Some of these venues simply look less professional, and I do think that may slow some of the momentum the league had developed last year with the designated players. There's also the impact on television. I believe it was Rob Stone who said not long ago that it was hard to make a broadcast look and sound compelling if there was no atmosphere in the stands and lot of empty seats. I don't know if there is any real evidence lower attendance impacts ratings in a meaningful way, but I'll be honest, it does impact what games I watch -- or at least how much of a given game I'll watch. Certain venues simply look good on a telecast and show the league in a good light: Toronto, DC United, Chicago, the Home Depot Center (for both teams), Houston -- not all of them even SSS, but loud, visible crowds. Despite their efforts, the big, artificial surface venues in New England, NYRB and even Salt Lake (where the turf turns these games into ping pong) don't show nearly as well. For temporary venues like Kansas City, they really seem to be challenged to get decent camera angles -- too low and its hard to see, too high and you have JC Penny staring at you in the background the whole time. I don't know if San Jose will have similar issues, but there was an interesting conversation on the San Jose board noting that whenever there was a score at one end the cameras will be trained on the portable toilets behind one of the goals. Even in SSS venues at Columbus, Colorado and Dallas, it depends a lot on the crowd -- when the crowds are smaller they tend to have a lot of empty seats right in the front, center of the stadium that makes it look like no one is there for a TV audience. All of this is at the margin, of course. For MLS' core fans -- and many posters here -- it doesn't matter much. But when you are trying to attract new soccer fans, and if you assume most of these potential fans will be introduced (or re-introduced) to your product via television, when half of your venues don't present well on TV with the crowds you tend to draw, it's a problem IMO.
i think that if you have to put kc in cab, and you set up sj to live in buckshaw and macafee (that set-up gave off bad old nasl vibes), even though you do it in the perspective of moving into excellent venues 2 or 3 years from now, you're setting yourself up to struggle in the present. mls has quite a bit to get through before it steps into the next phase. be prepared to slug along. also, i know the crowd at clb was miniscule. but watching on tv i thought they were into the game. that gives me, believe it or not, almost a better feeling than a crowd of 20k that has been put together by marketing give-aways, but really has no atmosphere. if clb plays decently well, as the weather warms up, that crowd doubles. if they keep it up they might hit a real, solid 15k which would be fine for now. i agree with the artificial surface observation. rsl is awful, but giants stadium is no good either. the first thing i noticed when i walked in for the opener was how bad the surface looked. sigi schmid mentioned it at the end as well.
http://uskickblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/2008-mls-attendance.html current numbers... 5 teams are above their 2007 numbers... 7 are below... 1 hasn't had a home game yet, and 1 wasn't around last year... and with only 1-2 home games for most teams, its still VERY early.
This is true. I especially expect to see an uptick as the new expansion teams come on line. I think the new teams will draw considerably better than the bottom end existing teams. If nothing else, this will reduce the < 10 000 numbers through sheer dilution. Ideally it will increase the > 20 000 number as well although that remains to be seen.
Also, the larger attended clubs except LA have only seen 1 or no home games. 4 have been in Kansas and while not a bad showing cannot exceed 11k. That is a limiting factor in itself. We know how many will be a BMO on Saturday, there's quite a buzz here in TO after last Sunday. So its not all doom and gloom, right? Plus TFC now has 5 home game on the bounce so expect a boost in attendance numbers but for any horrendous weather that may drop a few thousand.
I'm pretty sure the attendance is given as tickets sold rather than turnstile. The TFC attendance, therefore, will be the same no matter what the weather.
Could there be one mistake in the numbers? Did MLS really have the same exact median after 10% of games played as for the entire season? If so, that's freaking weird.
I think Revolt was referring to the comparison of 2007 "Final Numbers" vs 2007 "10% of Season Completed". (15,353 vs 15,353)
I noticed that myself and double checked. I could not find a mistake. 15,353 was the 4th game played in the 2007 season between NE and Chicago. 15,353 was the median 6 times in the 2007 season, including the last one. Here were the games played in 2007 up to this point which happened to end on a median of 15,353 Code: Attend # Average Median 18086 1 18,086 18,086 18678 2 18,382 18,382 13782 3 16,849 18,086 15353 4 16,475 16,720 14351 5 16,050 15,353 16404 6 16,109 15,879 23596 7 17,179 16,404 16157 8 17,051 16,281 22358 9 17,641 16,404 18184 10 17,695 17,245 16519 11 17,588 16,519 8865 12 16,861 16,462 12110 13 16,496 16,404 13290 14 16,267 16,281 12481 15 16,014 16,157 11717 16 15,746 15,755 11253 17 15,481 15,353 20500 18 15,760 15,755 7438 19 15,322 15,353 14087 20 15,260 14,852 20148 21 15,493 15,353 13572 22 15,406 14,852 27000 23 15,910 15,353
Perhaps the less than 10k figure should take a back seat this year, well for the next couple of years and/or give capacity its own column? I don't know how to paste the table, while maintaining the spacings.
Since we're talking about KC's stadium: so they're only limited to a certain number of seats, and that's one of the major factors for their low attendance? Nevermind, saw it in an earlier post.
Everyone should expect a lighter crowd for NY this week as the Jewish Religious holiday of Passover is on Saturday.
Forgot about that. But I don't think it will have that big of an impact. And if it does, then it will be about the same for all of the other games on Saturday.
Dont bet on it, while it is true many Jewish people in NY don't observe the Sabbath many do make it a point to take Passover seriously as it is one of their major religous days. Considering the % of Jewish population in this region you will see a noticable blip in the numbers. I already know a couple dozen supporters that wont be going because of it, so applied across the board i would bet we will be a few K short this weekend....maybe 12K tops, combined with the post opener decrease most teams get.
Hopefully we'll get a little bump overall this week since Toronto hasn't had a home match yet. They're always good for a full capacity showing. KC and Crew are away, and TFC is at home..might be a substantial swing ;-)
Here's a nice little article I wrote for everyone pining over a Crew demise and attendance numbers. http://crewonespot.blogspot.com/2008/04/grahame-jones-and-all-other-crew.html
lol. I like the way you compare the situation to Scunthrope (The sporty-spice of England (according to Ali-G).) and ManU. It's definitely a parallel scenario.
Dude, take it from me there absolutely, 100%, without a doubt, was 20,000 at the HDC on Sunday. I've been to just about every game ever at that stadium and the crowd was fantastic for a Sunday noon kick off. Just because it didn't translate well on TV since those sections on camera were in the direct Sunlight, doesn't mean it wasn't true. And if the best you can do to defend your market is to attack the attacker, then I'd suggest you have a weak argument. Actually the non-LA rant parts of your article are just fine.
Yeah, that's cool, I was definately looking at the empty four or five rows on the lower deck just in the sun and figured if those were not full then the upper decks were not. Btw, obviously whoever posted that picture is embarrassed of their supporters section as they deleted the pic's link. The X represents about the same thing though so no worries. (Is that necessary tho, it is what it is.) And all kidding aside, that journalist deserves it because he has no idea what the hell he is talking about. All he does is look at the attendance number on mlsnet.com and draws an inference from that all the way across the country. I die for this team, I drive three hours a game. When people talk about this team like it's moving a couch it pisses me the f off. So, I'll call out the team that he likes. There are some things better about C-Bus then LA, like the supporters group and the team quality now. And, really the numbers are not that crazily different in prespective to the population. (Btw, not trying to really knock other supporters groups but just calling it as I see it. We stunk in the past, picked it up last year, and really picked it up this year. LA, Dallas, RSL, and Colorado are just trife when it comes to supporters sections. Just being honest. And, it's not impossible to change though, look at KC and Columbus.) You seem like a nice guy too and if I get a little extra money (college student) I'll donate to your thing, my cousin's kid has it too. Good luck man.
Well mbar, you're full of crap, that stadium did not have 20k in it. I've also seen plenty of games at the Depot Center with an announced crowd of around 20k, indeed I saw a Chivas game with slightly lower announced attendance the week before and I know it was fuller. Last weekends claimed attendance was complete bull and you should own up to it.