News: 2012 Attendance

I'm sure that this is a "marketing positive" and will hopefully expose more potential fans to the MLS game.

But everyone knows that this will spark "Attendance Thread" controversy, and (certain) people will be yelling "Astrix Astrix Astrix!!!!!"

However, more fan exposure is never a bad thing.

 

I guess I wouldn't have thought that the Mexico (or Senegal) U-23's were that big a draw in San Francisco.

 

I may be mistaken, but put any Mexican team near any metropolitan area in California, and the fans will show up.

 

It was going to be a good year without the double header anyways. KC won't have the marathon of home games, which hopefully means they'll have a slightly higher average. Houston is getting their new stadium, but is having a seven game away stretch to start off, but should still see a nice bump in attendance. Montreal is joining the league and having their first 5 games in Olympic Stadium and should get very good numbers for their first game, Toronto, New York, and LA games before heading to Saputo stadium where they'll still get good numbers. Seattle is expanding their seating to around 39,000 seats and are, apparently, planning several full stadium games and are expecting above 40k average.

The question is, what effect will the "We're gonna move, damn it!!" threats coming out of DC is going to have there, will the increases at FCD and Colorado continue, can Columbus and NER turn it around..

 

the Mexican U23 is getting ready for Olympic qualifying that will start at the HDC for them later in March. a friendly in San Jose/San Fran might be a (very) decent draw, although it is hard to know what the true expectations are for ticket sales from the event organizers.

(Is SUM the event organizer, or do they just handle the senior Mexican team friendlies in the States?)

as for DC, I can't imagine that the effects in 2012 will be significantly different (or worse) than what was already experienced (in 2011 or earlier), with respect to the "We're gonna move, damn it!!" threats. the real driver of attendance (for DC it may seem, as they waddle around in search of a path to a stadium solution) would be can United win games at home and be an entertaining and relevant side (as has not been the case in numerous recent seasons).

 

Also on the positive side is the fact the Portland is going to open up more seats (1500 per game), or at least that was the plan. Anyone know if this occurred?

 

Sorry, you're right. I completely forgot about Portland expanding to 20,323 seats. So pen that average after every one of their home games and their final average. Unless, of course, they increase capacity for a couple of test games again.

 

This move by itself should have a significant impact on the >20 000 percentage for the upcoming year.

 

They have screwed this up. They should have committed to Baltimore and used Towson State or the Ravens stadium as a temporary solution or disavowed the idea. They are now appealing to neither market.

It could end up being like the ignominious end to the tenure of the team that was pronounced in Highlandtown ("Hahlintan") as the "Coats."

As reported in Sports Illustrated, Colts QB Bert Jones was toiling away in front of 30,000 or so (for a team that had previously been a tough ticket) at Memorial Stadium, when a fan got up to leave and said, "Turn out the lights when you're done, Bert." Except it will be more like 8,000 at RFK.

 

Ugh MLS doubleheaders. This is so MLS from 10 years ago. When can we finally put this to rest

 

Start hating making money.

 

Its more money and exposure for the Quakes. Other than the fans based in the South Bay, I'm trying to figure out where the downside is.

I love the idea of the Quakes playing games occasionally at Stanford and the Central Bay Area. I think it really helps to broaden the fan base.

 

Do the doubleheaders actually work though? I seem to recall the stands being pretty empty for the MLS game before they filled in for the marquee game

 

Alot of those fans from 10 years ago still think the quality of play is the same.

 

Ugh MLS doubleheaders. This is so MLS from 10 years ago. When can we finally put this to rest
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I'm going to this game because it's at ATT. I can go on BART instead of driving to the inner bay area which I am loathe to do

I'm certain I'm not alone on this one

 

so has anyone projected attendance at all? Honestly the 18Kish range seems very plausible.

 

18k isn't impossible. Just to throw some numbers out, I used a five year average since established teams tend to fluctuate around a certain number unless something big happens (new stadium, etc). I also made some changes here and there based on gut feel.

Code:

CHI  15,660
CHV  14,783
COL  13,781
CLB  14,225
DCU  15,000
FCD  12,857
HOU  19,000
SKC  18,000
LAG  23,090
MTL  20,000
NER  14,852
NYR  20,000
PHI  18,756
PDX  20,323
RSL  16,641
SJE  12,336
SEA  40,000
TFC  20,264
VAN  20,412
AVG  18,420

 

fwiw, with 323 regular season league games in 2012, an average of 18,420 would get the league a total attendance of 5,949,660.

to get 6M total in the regular season, MLS would need to average 18,575.85 per game.

 

Curious as to why you put 40,000 for Seattle. Is that the new soccer capacity? Hadn't seen an announcement of that. If so, fantastic.

 

The GM said he expects the average to be 40k. I'm not 100% how he plans on getting that, but they opened up the Hawk's Nest, which adds another 2,800 to the capacity bringing it to 38500. The only thing I can think of beyond that is that they usually distribute another 500-1000 tickets beyond the capacity and maybe they are planning on opening up the entire stadium for a game or two again.

 

I believe I saw a Hanauer quote that said they intended to do another 3-game-pack that included the "marquee friendly" and 2 MLS matches, like they did with Man-U last year.