A few years ago San Jose said they make more money from a full house at SeatGeek than a 50,000 attendance at Stanford. But the big events do let more people see how bad they are.
PayPal Park now, formerly Avaya Stadium in San Jose. SeatGeek is where the Chicago Fire played in Bridgeview.
Attendance is up on average in MLS. Messi effect is evident, but even when Miami doesn't come to town, fans in other places are turning out. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/06/24/mls-mid-season-attendance-up
LMAO! Don't expect 50K next Saturday, 25K would be more accurate and half of those are just there for the fireworks afterwards.
For some it may be cheaper to buy a season ticket than a single match ticket to watch a Messi game. Another reason why Messi was such a great signing for MLS.
I mean I would have loved to go to Copa America but since the USMNT will play their 2026 matches in LA, I'd rather save my money for that or any other 2026 game at SoFi.
There is absolutely enough of a fan base in SJ to support an MLS team. SJ could have consistent sell outs in PayPal Park (18K) if they only a) produced a competitive team and b) signed a few players who are marketable. The SJEQs have a deep 50-year history and considering the dreck they've been for much of that time, I think hold up pretty well. SJ should be competing with and comparable to the other west coast teams like SDFC, LAFC and LAG. SD just signed Chucky Lozano, LAFC signed Bale, Giroud and Lloris. LAG have signed Chicharito. Who have the Quakes ever signed those types of players? When LAFC came to SJ with Bale, we sold out PayPal. As I said in another thread, the Quakes are in danger of becoming the Clippers of MLS. Bad owner, don't try to win, are essentially irrelevant in the broader sports landscape, and just hang around and get more valuable as the league and the sport grow. The Quakes need a really rich person to come in, buy the team, invest in the facilities (stadium and build training facility), and increase the player spend to break out of the situation they are in.
From today's Athletic article about the rise in MLS attendance: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5587245/2024/06/24/mls-attendance-rise/
Interesting to contrast the Athletic article with the ESPN one, both of which I got alerts on my phone for in a ~3 minute time span. https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_...ssi-boosts-mls-attendance-7-percent-midseason The Athletic article is specifically talking about how tis not just Messi driving the increase, while the ESPN article is about how Messi is driving the increase. BTW some basic math. Every 10K Messi brings to a game brings the total average attendance of the league up by...20 people. (493 total games a season/10,000 = 20.3) Given that Inter Miami's stadium only holds ~20K, and some of those people would show up for the team with or without Messi a generous best case scenario is that Messi brings in an average of 30K extra people per game, which would add 60 to the overall average. Given that scenario over the course of the season Messi's attendance pull would increase the league attendance about 2000 per game. Realistically its probably less than that.
With the four examples you mentioned, it looks like San Jose have been relegated to irrelevancy once again! I agree about the Galaxy and Red Bulls, but Chicago and Kansas City? In their current forms...they're going through a rough patch. Columbus is an original team on the rise. (Sorry...couldn't read the whole article as it's behind a paywall). I feel for San Jose's fans though. In any pro sports league with a large number of teams, it's unrealistic for fans to expect championship runs every year. The best you can hope for (and it's not too much to ask) is a competitive team that puts a decent product on the field, rink, or court and has enough quality to keep fans coming back for more, whether it's to watch the home town team or an opposing team's player that transcends the ordinary (like a Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretzky, or now, Lionel Messi). If the team continues to stink up the joint, and the ownership/front office don't care about the performance, that's when you see attendance dwindle and people stop caring. With fewer fans coming to games, the concessionaires make less money, as do businesses in the surrounding neighborhood of the stadium or arena. When that has a negative impact on those business' bottom line, that's when neighborhood blight isn't far behind. From this standpoint, stadiums and arenas are vital to economic development wherever they are located, provided the franchise owner(s) have enough civic pride to care about that.
Once upon a time in America you couldn't watch a sports team playing home games on TV. The NFL only allowed it if the game was a sellout by Thursday at 2 PM and most other leagues didn't start until cable was a thing. Maybe part of the rise is because there is less access to watch now?
Yes, in Chicago, the Channel 2 (CBS) Wednesday/Thursday Newscasts would discuss how many tickets were still available for the upcoming Bears game, in hopes there would be last minute sales and the game could broadcast. Until 2007, The Chicago Blackhawks were famous (well, famously awful and stupid) for not broadcasting home games live, as Bill Wirtz thought it cut into ticket sales. Essentially, he was arguing that there were only 18,000 Blackhawk fans. From 1979-1981, the NBA Finals were shown on tape delay at 11:30 E (10:30 C) on CBS, unless the Finals featured a West Coast team. 1980, they went with tape delay, as CBS did not want to preempt (reruns of) Dallas or The Dukes of Hazzard. It's a shame that almost NO MLS matches are TV, only on a dedicated streaming service.
The dedicated streaming service had games that would have set the record for viewership back in the TV days. (Probably Messi was involved, but anyway). And Apple TV literally has only 2 main headings when you open their TV app: AppleTV+ and MLS. That's probably 10x the exposure MLS ever had as a second rate citizen on a RSN.
One a week on average. Plus all the free games on Apple. It's disgusting that all those people that didn't watch MLS on ESPN can't watch MLS games on ESPN.
That "10x exposure" FOR PEOPLE WHO SUBSCRIBE and almost 0 exposure for the 98-99% of the population who does not. According to Sports Business Journal, there are 2 million subscribers to MLS Season Plus. While it is true that includes households and not just individuals, that means the total potential audience is, at most, 1-2% of the population. https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/02/15/mls-season-pass-subscriptions There are about 25 million who subscribe to Apple TV Plus, so less than 8% of the population. Again, I am talking about potential audience. I am not arguing that this was a bad "business decision" for MLS. They are maximizing their actual audience by forcing those individuals to subscribe to this service. At least ESPN+ has a plethora of other content to watch. Plus, they had ESPN, which is available in the vast majority of US households to steer viewers. They could even put games on ESPN. Oh, and it was $4.99 a month.
That's national TV. How many of the local games were "free"? They were always on RSNs - and that business model is dying. Even the NBA, NHL, and MLB will be facing this issue in the next 2-3 years. MLS jumped off before they were forced to jump off, but in the near future everyone will jump off. I am hopeful that the NBA ends up on OTA here in L.A. because I still like my DVR more than any streaming service, but I am not too hopeful.
2 million subscribers, presumably all of them watch, since they are paying. That pretty much guarantees that more people are watching mls than ever before because almost every market had NEARLY ZERO viewership on their RSN. For example, the Galaxy got paid the most for their TV deal with Spectrum, but it was later learned that there were more people at the stadium than watching on TV.
As others have said, all of that population that never watched MLS continue not to do so. What an awful loss. We do miss out on the random casual who'd tune in to his RSN and fall in love with the game, but the evidence is that this almost never happened because almost nobody was watching in the first place.
I subscribe and the ONLY matches I watch are the Chicago Fire. Of course, I'm an idiot, as I am actually paying just to watch the Chicago Fire. I don't know. I thought all MLS teams were exclusively on MLS Season Pass. We'll see. Yes, this is likely and much to the detriment of that mythical "casual viewer."
Same, but for the Galaxy. It really isn't a great deal for most people, but welcome to the future. I am pretty sure other major sports will be doing the same soon, but for more money.