The 2022 season is off to a quick start Per the league's website, attendance at this week's opening rounds of games: Sat: Philadelphia 17,487 Columbus 18,939 LAFC 22,010 Dallas 12,233 Austin 20,738 DC 16,412 Miami 15,973 San Jose 16,146 Portland 23,411 Sun: Orlando 21,283 Atlanta 67,523 LA Galaxy 25,174 Houston 18,561 Seattle 30,013 Average attendance for Wk 1: 23,279
Rare sellout for the Galaxy this year. I think last year we had... 1? Also, did Portland fail to sell out, or was there extra capacity for MLS Cup only?? Sounders probably going to have games with <30k this season :-(
From the supporters' end I think the Atlanta number is genuine. The venue wasn't full (a sell out being over 68k in that configuration), but it was quite packed. Still an issue with folks being late to their seats and there are always tons of people in the concourses at any moment, but late in the 2nd half I looked around and was guessing 65k. So compared to some of last year's numbers I'm confident with that mark. Here's to hoping the league has a banner year in the stands as we come out of this mess.
I'm assuming all venues had no attendance restrictions this weekend. Is this the first-time since the pandemic or did we have some late season weeks last year?
The bridges above the supporters' section were packed the entire game, as was the little section of standing tables on the concourse behind my seats. It's so easy to watch the game from the concourses at the Benz. I noticed that the temporary seating was deployed in the upper endzone, but it didn't look like they sold any seats up there. The temporary seating along the sideline roof was still folded up. I wonder if the FO thought it might have been a game-day sellout and pulled out some extra seats just in case.
Now that their fan base has dwindled, the sounders can start looking at building a 25k seat sss. It'll awkward sellout and they won't lose many fans.
No team can afford losing fans. Not even a little. Also, why would you commit to a huge capital investment when you don't really need it?, It is not like the Sounders are playing with 10K in attendance.
The last full pre-pandemic season the Sounders averaged 40,247 in attendance. To suggest their fanbase is "dwindling" is ludicrous, at best. More likely is it's the same anti-factual doom and gloom trolling from the same source that always does that.
It will pay for itself eventually. The grass field will bring national team games. Revenue from parking and concerts will stay with the team. And they will keep the atmosphere they currently enjoy. As their attendance falls into the low 20ks (inevitable) their NFL stadium will start to look more and more cavernous.
Guess what - the pandemic permanently changed our reality. They will never get back to pre-pandemic numbers. Never.
The Sounders are showing us what everyone who followed MLS since '96 already knew - the new car smell ALWAYS goes away. It takes longer in the new MLS, but it will still happen.
Once attendance goes down (for any reason) it takes something drastic to build it back up... a rebrand or a new stadium at a minimum. So... they should get ready for that situation by starting to look for locations.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-f...straight-season-to-lowest-average-since-1981/ Despite record TV deals, a bunch of teams clamoring to move up to the FBS level, and improving viewership for just about everyone, college football has lost attendance for 7 straight years and just hit its lowest average since 1981. Georgia saw a minor loss in attendance despite winning the national title. While a few smaller schools, like SMU and Tulane, have intentionally downsized stadiums so they could fit them on campus, the trend everywhere else is still expansion and renovation. Nobody in their right mind is seriously considering smaller stadiums when there are so many other factors in play at the moment, especially Covid. Seattle would be monumentally stupid to even spend a nanosecond looking at building a 25k stadium.
I see we're back to completely unsupported and unrealistic predictions in this thread. MLS season must have started.
Seattle's numbers have gone up and down since their inception as an MLS side, but they steadily increased attendance for like seven years when they came into the league. The new car smell hasn't worn off. COVID just made it so they couldn't smell. Season ticket holders dropped for everybody during COVID, and they'll be slow to come back (fear of crowds, loss of income, war in Ukraine making gas $4/gal., etc.). You may be the only person on the planet worried about Seattle's attendance averages. I suspect they may hover around whatever the capacity of the lower bowl is for a few years until they're able to restore the feeling of scarcity, though.
Except not so much: https://www.foxla.com/news/average-...-time-in-28-days-amid-russia-ukraine-conflict As of last week it was running about $7.70 a gallon in the UK (yes, that's with converting the liter price in pounds to gallon price in dollars). Obviously before war actually broke out. But if they weren't at $10 a gallon yet its going to be a long time before we approach that, outside of price gouging.
Gas is $2.99-$3.05 for most locations in Lubbock. Costco is $3.03 here and I get 2% cash back from them and another 1.5% cash back on the card I use to pay for it. Dallas is slightly cheaper than Lubbock and Houston appears to be even cheaper than that. Where I grew up in the DC suburbs is about $3.35-$3.45 right now. The price of anything in LA isn't representative of the real world that 90% of the country deals with. People will absolutely keep going to games with current gas prices. Parking, concessions, convenience, etc. may keep them away, but gas prices for the vast majority of the country are barely even in the equation right now.
Washington state is lifting their indoor mask mandate (as are Oregon and California). Were there any restrictions on seating in Seattle? Maybe the more cautious about covid will be more inclined to attend later in the season.