I'm going to stop you right there. Unless there's been some sort of extreme two-year population boom, this argument is merely specious, and I'm guessing probably by design. You do make one truly valid counterpoint, though: spending on spectator sports is still slightly down (although you apparently couldn't ascertain just how much). However, as I've said before, extrapolating that to the unique case of the LA Galaxy's two year attendance plunge (25% over the past two years, far outpacing the league average even without Seattle) is kind of reaching. My burden to respond to insults is non-existent. If you want to make a counterpoint, accusing someone of lying is not the adult way to start such a rebuttal. I don't expect b*nge to know better, but I think you do.
A large number of people I know that go to Fire games skipped because of the boxing match, but some of my friends are Mexican. These aren't season ticket holders but definitely the "Chivas" crowd. Lots of them are Chivas fans and lots of them hate Chivas. I guess you could say it was a double whammy in terms of attendance. SeaM, feel free to attack me instead of the points that were raised against you.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof, and claiming that consumer behavior is back to pre-recession levels is an extraordinary claim to say the least. And showing a graph of overall spending, which includes durable goods spending, non-discretionary spending, and the like isn't even close to proof. The key is discretionary spending. Is that at pre-recession levels or is it much worse, which would mitigate complaints about attendances? That sort of spending, especially discretionary spending on entertainment, is related to consumer confidence since it can easily be avoided. So let's see how that is doing: Here is the link if it is hard to see: http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images...RTS_graphic/20100501_CHARTS_graphic-popup.jpg For the first time since it has been recorded, a majority expects their own income to drop over the next six months. And that is the backdrop to this discussion. It isn't just if you are already unemployed. If you are afraid of losing your job and staying unemployed (and long term unemployment is at record levels), you have to ask yourself - should I spend $100 taking the kids to the soccer game or should I use that money to help pay off the credit card bill or just put it away as savings in case I lose my job? If you are a passionate fan, you still go to the game. But if you are more marginal, you just watch on TV, or maybe you go once or twice instead of buying season tickets, etc. And that affects attendance across all sports and all teams. Everyone is running into a headwind right now and it is bizarre to claim that that headwind doesn't exist. Personally, I think the attendance levels overall have been excellent. When you consider the horrible state of the economy, the fact that teams are getting attendances that are decent by historical standards is fantastic. This recession too shall pass, of course, so the league looks to be well positioned for when consumer pessimism recedes (which won't happen until unemployment starts improving) and consumer discretionary spending starts flowing again. That probably won't be until next year at the earliest, however. Of course, SeaM, if you have data to show that the graph above is wrong and that consumer pessimism and fear aren't at historically high levels, I will be glad to look at them. Or if you have data that is more relevant to discretionary spending on entertainment. But the burden is on you to back up those extraordinary claims. I hope that response was adult enough for you.
1% a year is actually quite substantial when you've truncated the axis of the graph. The picture wouldn't look anywhere as compelling. But really, that kind of graph makes no sense for this issue anyway. You'll notice that consumer spending at the trough of the recession is significantly above where it was in 2006. Are you really going to argue that the economy was better in the middle of the recession than it was in 2006? Furthermore, consumer spending has trended upward over the lifetime of MLS and yet attendance hasn't. Would you really take this as evidence that the economy cannot affect attendance? A characteristic of recessions is that changes in income (and the attendant uncertainty) focus changes in spending on a specific kinds of items, large durable goods and "discretionary" spending in particular. Do I think this explains most of the changes in the Galaxy's attendance? My guess is that other factors are more important. The arrival of Beckham was associated with an increase in ticket prices (mine went from $45 to $75), a decline in consumer service, and three years of missing the playoffs. It's going to take a while to get back the customers that were driven away. However, I think it's also true that the state of the economy has slowed down that process.
The thing is that the Galaxy are actually going in reverse. We did better the last few years even with higher ticket prices and a crappier team than we are doing this year. Seems like we've been declining in attendance since 2008 even though our team has gotten better since then. Even this year, we started out over 20k and now we're down to 15k on a Saturday night. I saw on the Galaxy boards that they are offering last minute tickets for $10. I don't know why they don't advertise that for a week before the game. I guess they want to see how many people will pay full price before dropping it to these insane lows, but it isn't working. They'd probably make more money on a 25k stadium of $10 seats than what they have now. When people pay less for seats, they tend to spend more on food/beer/merchandise.
Nice. You say the key is discretionary income, "so let's see how that is doing" and then give a link to something that doesn't show discretionary income. Yeah, that's mighty adult of you. It's adulterous use of fake stats, in fact. He gave proof - a graph that showed consumer spending was rebounding. You gave a graph that showed optimism was rebounding, though you labeled it something else. If you have a real point to make, come back when you argue like a thoughtful person, and not just like a lying adult.
Cut the shit. SeaM made a bullshit claim that was disproved. The graph SeaM posted ignored changes in population size and that flaw was exposed. Discretionary income or not, the graph Prazan posted shows that consumer confidence is down. Cut the shit. This isn't the Politics forum.
Then you haven't been reading. Even Baysider agreed with the point I was making (about soccer - there's a large logo up there that says we're talking about soccer). Listen, I can pull up a whole bunch more neglected (and misquoted) statistics and prolong the off-topic portion of the argument. But I know as much as anyone that minds are made up in advance on stuff like this, especially here, so there's zero point. Ah, what's the use. You're just going to wind up with an insult no matter what, so the floor is yours.