WED (4/19) SJE @ NER: 10,487 FRI (4/21) CHI @ TFC: 27,097 SAT (4/22) MTL @ PHI: 15,107 SJE @ HOU: 16,918 VAN @ POR: 21,144 DCU @ NER: 16,591 CLB @ NYR: 20,008 SKC @ FCD: 15,411 ATL @ RSL: 18,946 SUN (4/23) ORL @ NYC: 22,470 SEA @ LAG: 24,931 COL @ MIN: 17,491 WEEK 7 TOT: 226,601 GMS: 12 AVG: 18,883 2017 YTD TOT: 1,616,341 GMS: 79 AVG: 20,460
17k in a 50k stadium is going to look pretty damn empty.. good thing their actual home stadium is going to be quite a bit smaller than their current..
Agreed but still doesn't dispute their attendance is far behind the other recent expansion teams. I know not every market is the same. First 3 home games NYCFC 30474 Orlando 42134 Minnesota 23420 Atlanta only 2 home games 50600
*shrug* It's nothing to be worried about. MNU isn't the first team to take a season or two off while they build their stadium. 17k isn't a bad number.
But it's not their first season as a team tho. *shrug* You've spent far too much time in this thread worrying about individual data points, be it individual games, individual teams, or individual seasons. Trust me, you'll enjoy the thread more if you pay more attention to the big picture.
Attendance is all about perspective, isn't it? Minnesota Stars (2010-12)/Minnesota United Attendance average per game: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_United_FC_(2010–16) 2010 1,374 2011 1,676 (+22%) 2012 2,651 (+58%) 2013 4,445 (+68%) 2014 8,109 (+80%) 2015 8,767 (+8.1%) 2016 8,573 (-2.2%) 2017 23,420 (+273%) (Note, I've seen some conflicting figures for 2012-14 elsewhere on wikipedia and soccerway.com, but's what noticeable is the trend.) Quite remarkable to me...
I fear Minnesota will be another Colorado. Basically the same size population with the Big 4 sports not to mention Big 10 sports. Im wondering if there isn't just too much competition for that size population.
Expansion Team Twitter Followers as of April 24: @ATLUTD - 499k (1st) @MNUFC - 57.9k (23rd behind LAFC, which hasn't played a game yet) It's frustrating when the teams in the most crowded sports cities are the ones that do the least in attempting to win over the market. Expansion teams' first season fan support eventually levels off once the honeymoon period is over, so wouldn't you want to as strong a first impression as possible so you'll still have enough support to draw respectable crowds going into Season 4, 5 and onward?
I agree. That's why if they are getting 17k now whats it going to be in year 5? History suggests not good. Maybe their new stadium can give them a chance for a new start. We'll see.
I'm not a big fan of the ownership by committee system that MNU has set up, with several billionaire's having a piece of the club, and to my un-reasearched knowledge none of them with the majority share? While the Wilf family surely would have been no Arthur Blank, and likely would not have had the same success, you have to wonder if US Bank Stadium in conjunction with Vikings management would have been a better sell than a minor-league team getting moved up to MLS in a college stadium with a little stadium in St. Paul coming in a couple years. Personally, I was like the majority on here, and I believe in MN soccer, who were very strongly in favor of the MNU group, and I still think it's too early to tell if it may have been a bad decision, but i'm starting to second guess it. It's clear we have seen a much more limited attempt at launching in MNU than we have with any other recent expansion club, and it looks like the MNU will likely be less relevant in the twin cities market than Atlanta, Seattle and Orlando appear tobe in their markets. I doubt they will have a problem reaching capacity on a regular basis at home, but i'm afraid they may end up more like RBA than SKC.
I guess I used some poor wording. I meant I was thinking they may end up being more like RB, who needs the stars to align perfectly (weekend, great weather, great opponent, no schedule congestion etc.) to draw well, than SKC who generally sells out or very close even on a weeknight. The point of this thread was always to track the general health of the league, and with the stadium coming and the wealth of the ownership group, the future of this club is not in jeopardy, so really nothing to be concerned about. It's more a sense of dissapointment as I was expecting a much bigger splash from this club, and also hopefuly they would raise the overall profile of the league with big time players, big local ratings helping with national TV revenue and sponsorship. It seems as they are more likely to be just another club, rather than a major driver of growth. It can't be disputed however, that MNU is nowhere near it's potential at this point, and as mentioned earlier, it's usually best to make a splash at the start. They certainly botched their launch imo.
Seems where MLS teams have thrived most is when they have been led by an activist owner. The ones that seem to struggle are the ones where the MLS team is just another property for some absent billionaire.
That is fine I will continue to analyze attendance in the attendance thread. Comparing their seasons outside of MLS to their first in MLS? Come on...you are better than that. Other still existing expansion teams first 3 home games (minus 1998 Chicago Fire, mainly because I couldn't find attendances for their matches) - 2005 RSL - couldn't find attendances. Seems like they were an unexpected bright spot and had some decent attendances at the beginning. They had 25,287 at first match. - 2006 Houston 20,902 - 2007 Toronto 19,770 Sellouts stadium was capped around 20k at the time - 2009 Seattle 29,939 - 2010 Philly 26,221 (3rd game was a PPL and SO at 18+k) - 2011 Portland 18,627 (SO at Jeld-Wen) - 2011 Vancouver 20,801 (pretty sure these were sell outs) - 2012 Montreal 33,751 - 2015 NYCFC 30,474 - 2015 Orlando 42,134 - 2017 Atlanta 50,600 (only 2 home games) Minnesota 23,420 Minnesota's average holds up in about the middle. Although several of those below them were capped by stadium sizes (Toronto, Portland, Vancouver, Philly-to a degree). Only 1 with an average lower than them was not help back by stadium size (Houston). Houston is the only team to have a lower attendance in one of their first 3 home games than Minnesota's 17k games. Also, although Houston was labeled an expansion team they were really a relocated team and that probably restricted some of the buzz and ownership marketing excitement. Is Minnesota in uncharted territory? Absolutely not. Is their 2 17k games in their first 3 worth discussion? Yes, IMO. Compared to what we have seen lately it is extremely lack luster. Does it mean they will never be supported as well as some other teams? No. I am a fan of Minnesota being in the league. I really expected them to come in with the fan support of Orlando. I guess this is on me for having this expectation.
You also might want to check that, because that match with 5k wasn't an MLS match. It was a US Open Cup qualification match.
Ok, Wikipedia had it as their first regular season game. You know what you get for using Wikipedia. You were right. I have updated. Thanks. I thought that seemed odd.
I'm not worried about Minnesota as a market, it's a great join in the long run no matter what they do in their opening year for multiple reasons. But I can see why people are a bit disappointed by the fact that they're already slipping so fast, I mean look at the last few expansion teams; NYC, Orlando, the Cascadian teams, even the Loons sister expansion team Atlanta. We've been spoiled by cases like this, its become the rule and not the exception that new teams should be selling out to begin with. Minnie's got a fine average attendance that we'd kill to see with some other teams in the original ten, but after all those? they pale in comparison. We're just gonna have to keep perspective, our standards have become so lofty we're nitpicking a team for having an okay start and not tearing down all expectations, what does that say about the state of the league as a whole?
SKC have sold out 90 consecutive regular season matches. A fact that stills seems slightly incomprehensible to someone who has been attending KC games since 1996.
How many of those recent expansion teams got completely railroaded in their home opener in front of a large crowd? How many started off by putting up MLS records in getting destroyed? Going to a game and watching your new home town team look like a joke on the first day doesn't push people to want to buy tickets to the next game. It just isn't fun. If the game were close and entertaining, then its a different story. As Minnesota improves their results on the field, I am sure that will have some sort of positive impact on the attendance numbers. The market may improve over time as well. I know with RSL that although the first season had some decent attendance numbers. The team took a few years before you really started to feel that the community embraced them. Every year it seems more people have started to care about the team. You see more RSL jersey's in elementary schools than Utah Jazz shirts now. Attendance isn't selling out currently, likely due to the team being pretty hard on the eyes last year and early this year, but the interest in the team is still growing. It is very possible for Minnesota, as well as other teams to follow a similar curve.
I will try to look at early games for the teams but if an expansion market fans cant handle a couple big loses in their first couple games then that alone tells you a lot about the market IMO. Expansion team fans shouldn't expect to win the cup in the first year. They should expect pretty tough going for a year or two. The first year should be about the excitement of being major league and not so much results. All in my opinion. Not stating any of that as me thinking it is fact. If 2 bad loses is all it takes to literally cut attendance in half then that is a concern in my opinion.
I will agree with you that there launch has not been the smoothest. But I dont understand why people think the individual clubs operate for the sake of the league as a whole. MNU never intended to be a Seattle or LA. From the begining they stated they were going to take a grass roots like approach. Early on before the team was awarded ownership stated that Sporting KC is one of the models that they would like aspire to. And speaking of sponsorship MNU propabably helped sealed the deal on Target a league sponsor. So there they helped the league. The Twin Cities market is fine but the team marketing is very suspect. I would say the grass roots and soccer community effort, and local pr and news effort has been good. The advertising to the casual market has been practically non existent. I have seen very little in out door advertsing efforts to promote games at TCF. No advertising on Metro Transit but im pretty sure I see stuff for the Twins and the Vikings on Metro Transit all the time. I question the TV deal the station is over the air with no other sports and only available in the metro. Every other team is on Fox Sports North, cable yes but a better platform and can be viewed by folks in other parts of the state and Wisconsin. As someone who lives in the cities I expected attendence around the 19k-20k so yes it is a little disappointing but no way the Twin cities was ever going to be like Orlando or Atlanta or NYC. Twin Cities and Denver are the two smallest cities with all major sports plus college people have lots of other options to spend there sports dollar and dedicate there loyality. And yes US Bank Stadium my have been a better temp stadium for the casuals but the Stadium in St. Paul will be way better in the long run then being a part of the Vikings ownership group. I am not a MN native in it drives me crazy sometimes but slow steady growth is the MN way never flashy or splashy it just isnt the Minnesota way.
Meanwhile atlanta has sold out their 3rd straight home match 45k six days in advance. 45k. 6 days in advance Simply amazing. http://www.dirtysouthsoccer.com/2017/4/24/15413518/atlanta-united-announce-third-consecutive-sellout