Great link. Bad news. I attribute the Rhino's decline to the increased ticket price -vs- the "cool" economy (cheap seats are now $11 to sit behind "home plate" and stare diagonally across the penalty area). I'd also have to give a nod to our "coach" who has never learned how to teach offense. In past years you'll see that when the team wasn't scoring, we threw money at the problem by signing new blood in the hopes that they could go out and score without being coached. It's happening again this year, but unfortunately I don't think the forwards will be comfortable with each other in time for this weeks important games. Note to Charelston and Atlanta: We have yet to score 3 goals in a game, if you can get past the defense a couple of times, Ercoli won't know what to do.
Hopefully, all teams willl finish the year with average attendance over 1,000. Here is hope that Rochester can put up another 10,000+ season.
http://www.usldiscussions.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001605 2001 Per Capita A-League Attendance SORTED BY AVERAGE ATTENDANCE PER 1,000 RESIDENTS Team (Metropolitan Area)……Population……2001 Avg. Attd…….Attd per 1K 1. Rochester Raging Rhinos (Rochester, NY) .... 1,079,073 .... 11,006 .... 10.2 per 1K 2. Charleston Battery (Charleston-North Charleston, SC) .... 552,803 .... 3,041 .... 5.5 3. Hershey Wildcats (Harrisburg-Lebanon-Carlisle, PA) .... 618,375 .... 3,091 .... 5.0 4. El Paso Patriots (El Paso, TX) .... 701,908 .... 3,056 .... 4.4 5. Vancouver Whitecaps (Vancouver, BC) .... 1,831,665 .... 5,535 .... 3.0 6. Portland Timbers (Portland-Salem, OR-WA) .... 2,180,996 .... 6,162 .... 2.8 7. Richmond Kickers (Richmond-Petersburg, VA) .... 961,416 .... 2,501 .... 2.6 8. Milwaukee Rampage (Milwaukee-Racine, WI) .... 1,648,199 .... 2,454 .... 1.5 9. Pittsburgh Riverhounds (Pittsburgh, PA) .... 2,331,336 .... 3,316 .... 1.4 10. Connecticut Wolves (Hartford, CT) .... 1,147,504 .... 1,613 .... 1.4 11. Indiana Blast (Indianapolis, IN) .... 1,536,665 .... 2,109 .... 1.4 12. Minnesota Thunder (Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN-WI) .... 2,872,109 .... 3,807 .... 1.3 13. Nashville Metros (Nashville, TN) .... 1,171,755 .... 1,457 .... 1.2 14. Charlotte Eagles (Charlotte-Gastonia-Rock Hill, NC) .... 1,417,217 .... 1,535 .... 1.1 15. Montreal Impact (Montreal, QUE) .... 3,326,510 .... 2,327 .... 0.7 16. Toronto Lynx (Toronto, ONT) .... 4,263,757 .... 2,795 .... 0.7 17. Seattle Sounders (Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, WA) .... 3,465,760 .... 2,120 .... 0.6 18. Atlanta Silverbacks (Atlanta, GA) .... 3,857,097 .... 1,849 .... 0.5 19. Cincinnati Riverhawks (Cincinnati-Hamilton, OH-KY-IN) .... 1,960,995 .... 902 .... 0.5 20. Long Island Rough Riders (Nassau-Suffolk, NY) .... 2,688,904 .... 1,033 .... 0.4 21. San Diego FC (San Diego, CA) .... 2,820,844 .... 641 .... 0.2 Info taken from http://www.usldiscussions.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=001605
Attendance as of 8-5-2002: team home games total ave. Rochester 10 99,079 9,908 Portland 10 58,867 5,887 Seattle 10 46,050 4,605 Montreal 11 49,265 4,479 Minnesota 10 42,212 4,221 Vancouver 11 40,964 3,724 Charleston 11 36,875 3,352 Richmond 10 24,546 2,455 El Paso 11 24,296 2,209 Milwaukee 11 22,172 2,016 Pittsburgh 12 24,171 2,014 Indiana 10 19,417 1,942 Calgary 11 17,753 1,614 Toronto 11 17,252 1,568 Hampton Roads 12 12,864 1,072 Charlotte 11 11,791 1,072 Atlanta 13 13,057 1,004 Cincinatti 10 7,105 711 http://www.users.qwest.net/~dallen3/Attendance.html
I don't see how many of these teams can pay the bills. How many make a profit and how many can even survive?