2:00 game bad for attendance

Discussion in 'MLS: General' started by nthemsum, May 21, 2006.

  1. nthemsum

    nthemsum Member

    Jan 14, 2006
    boise,id
    Looks like another day game in the heat turned out bad for attendance in comparison to houstons other games. The MlS should seriously consider working out a deal with espn to broadcasts a saturday evening game. Not because thats when the fans will only attend games but because you want to show off to the world that your leauge is growing.
     
  2. Fanaddict

    Fanaddict Member+

    Mar 9, 2000
    streamwood IL USA
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It was a 3:00pm local ct time game but still we've been saying for years that it isn't worth the espn2 coverage to give up the attendance difference and the fact play in the heat is not the best. MLS has ignored the fans on this and appears it will continue to do so.
     
  3. firefan2001

    firefan2001 Member+

    Dec 27, 2000
    Oswego, Illinois
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Next year went ESPN and ABC start to pay the league for airing the games, they will move then to a better time slot. They can't afford bad attendance and bad rating when there paying for the rights to air the games.
     
  4. The Prophet

    The Prophet Member

    Sep 9, 2003
    Big P, Texas
    Club:
    SS Lazio Roma
    we had 16k thats better then other teams at night.
     
  5. DaveBrett

    DaveBrett Member

    Nov 28, 1998
    Austin, Texas
    I've heard that MLS hopes the Saturday afternoon games will advertise the Saturday evening games. In other words, MLS hopes that people will see the afternoon game, and get the idea to go to the evening game. But it doesn't work.

    First of all, not many people watch the Saturday afternoon games. And the Saturday afternoon games aren't any good. They're slow and poorly attended.

    But MLS is making a basic marketing mistake. If you want to get people's attention, you have to advertise an event at least a day or two in advance. That's why I think the ideal thing for MLS would be to have a Thursday evening game on ESPN2.
     
  6. Michael CM1

    Michael CM1 New Member

    Jun 5, 2002
    Atlanta, Georgia: US
    The best point of the topic. MLS took whatever time slot they could get before because bad TV time is better than no TV time. Next year when ESPN will be paying the league for the game, ESPN will have a motivation to promote the game with in-house ads. When MLS was footing the bill, what motivation did ESPN have to take up precious ad time?

    I'm still tickled at all the people that screamed "it's too cold!" when I said they should be playing games in March.
     
  7. KCWiz

    KCWiz New Member

    May 8, 2003
    Manhattan, Kansas
    The next LA derby in on ESPN2, Thursday night (June 8)!

    It shall be great.

    ESPN used to show the occasional weeknight MLS match a couple years back. Most memorable is the Burn-Quakes match in August 2003. Unfortunately, I just looked this up to check, and it was a Wednesday night, not Thursday. Sorry!
     
  8. kingjackdaniel

    Jul 16, 2004
    Dyer, IN
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    MLS will get paid for TV rights next year? When did this happen?
     
  9. Nodak

    Nodak New Member

    Feb 28, 2005
    Its tied in with World Cup tv rights.
     
  10. hogmesh

    hogmesh New Member

    May 13, 2006
    msp (formerly va)
    Club:
    DC United
    on the topic of day game v night game attendance (and mls attendance in general) some might be interested in the following-- http://www.kenn.com/soccer/mls/index.html

    full attendance for mls, plus a fairly comprehensive analysis of different factors.

    a couple good points (quoting from the site)...

    on weekday games v. weekend: "Whether you count Fridays as a weekday or a weekend (let's face it - Friday numbers seem to have more in common with weekend numbers than weekday numbers, but feel free to draw your own conclusion), we're looking at a difference of between 23-30% in announced attendance between your average weekday game and your average weekend game. Eventually I'll factor out the doubleheaders and holiday games and ESPN2 games, but for now all you really need to know is that there's a fairly substantial difference between the number of people who will attend an MLS game during the week and the number who will attend on a weekend, all other things being equal."

    on espn2 midday games: "Seemingly on way too many "Soccer Saturdays," we'll see a half-empty stadium surrounding MLS showcase game of the week. Those will be followed by the inevitable Bigsoccer rants about how the tradeoff of national television exposure for reduced crowds thanks to that timeslot doesn't work in the league's favor."

    "It appears as though there's a slight drag on MLS average attendance numbers due to playing on Saturday afternoons (based on this limited data set), but the "Soccer Saturday" numbers are far from dreadful overall. They're pretty bad in Kansas City, Dallas, Colorado and San Jose, places where they've had trouble selling tickets anyway. At least two alert readers point out that not only have those teams struggled to sell tickets, the fact they are progressively west results in increasingly early kickoff times, making the ESPN2 games a tougher sell. I once did a study that showed that as the kickoff time moved towards noon, the average crowd went down right along with it. 4pm Eastern starts weren't really all that bad. I'd have to re-do that study, and I will at some point. Thanks to those of you who wrote in."

    "Based on this limited data set, the effect doesn't appear to be as large as "everyone knows." Now, you can say that perception is more important than raw numbers, and you can say that you can't always believe the numbers that MLS puts out, and those are fair comments. It's entirely possible that the visual effect of a not-great crowd on a national TV game has some negative effect on reputation or league luster that can't be quantified solely by numbers.

    You can say it looks bad. But you can't say the numbers themselves are all that bad. Overall, the numbers announced for Soccer Saturday games, based on this limited sample, aren't dragging down MLS' overall attendance figures all that much." (direct link: http://www.kenn.com/soccer/mls/misc.html )



    there's plenty more on the site, but those are the pertinent parts. i'm no statistician so i'm not sure how good the methods are and that sort of thing. one thing to note though is that while the east coast teams seem to do pretty well on saturday afternoon espn2 games, there's a real difference the farther west you go (all tied in to earlier kickoff times, i bet).
     

Share This Page