I am old enough to remember when 14,000 was a great attendance number for MLS, and 18,000 would be HUGE. Now, 18,223 is the lowest attendance of the week (although these numbers are incomplete).
They have been very tardy, especially certain clubs. Strangely some of those clubs are the ones who consistently sell out, so why hide the number, brag about it instead.
Down to missing just 1 attendance figure. New York Red Bulls (vs. Vancouver) 17,525 Philadelphia (vs. Real Salt Lake) 19,048 Minnesota (vs. Kansas City) 19,712 Los Angeles FC (vs. Portland) 22,032 Still out: New York City vs. Charlotte
We love data. Even for NYCFC they've spent almost all of their existence in a baseball stadium so they should be able to count it at this point.
It's weird. They reported the attendance in stadium and in media releases. Not sure why it's not on the site. I'll try to get that number but I was told 20,xxx was announced. Edit: 20,119 according to Twitter fans.
According to Wikipedia, NYCFC drew 20,118 at Yankee Stadium. TOTAL ATTENDANCE FOR April 27th: 337,453 AVERAGE: 24,104 Tuesday night: Seattle at Philadelphia to play their abandoned match from last month.
Good numbers for this week and we're just getting into the prime part of the season when weather becomes less of an issue. . I also started seeing Leagues Cup being advertised the last two weeks. Does anyone think they might go over last years average attendance?
People today completely forget how dire MLS attendance used to be in the 90s and early 2000s. If you were following soccer back then (a much much smaller number of us) this thread was almost required reading. We followed this to see if MLS was going to be around based on these numbers by the end of the year. Many soccer fans today were born or became fans after the MLS 1.0 era so have little understanding of how precarious soccer's foothold in the US with MLS was and how much we owe to some of the owners like Kronke, Hunt and Kraft as well as the changes Garber implemented to steer MLS through those years.
You are so right. The pro/rel crowd are so focused on that being the savior of US soccer that they don't appreciate what has been done to this point by Garber and several of the owners. They realize how difficult it is to implement or how much you're asking of people who have put literally billions of dollars at risk. It's alway so easy to spend other people's money or have no clue as to the practical issues of pro/rel or the downsides of relegation to organizations and cities. For every Wrexham there are 10 teams that have ceased to exist because of the difficulties associated with relegation.
A better point is that they are looking to save US Soccer but the twist is that it doesn't need saving. Twitter has convinced themselves that MLS growth is driven entirely be Messi, but they are completely wrong.
Look if MLS came to Detroit and their precious FC died they'd yell and complain, and then what? Give up on live soccer? They'd attend anyway at the end of the day, because even they know that its just entertainment. You don't need to go on hunger strike over this stuff.
I suspect a number of “screw MLS” USL fans today might not be aware of how USL was considered a corporate inauthentic league a while back.
According to the not entirely reliable Reddit thread, average attendance is 23,428 2024 - 23,428 2023 - 22,111 2022 - 21,033 2021 - 15,350 2020 - 2,182 2019 - 21,265 2018 - 21,875 2017 - 22,112 2016 - 21,692