Nice results everywhere so far except D.C. I'm just curious: Why so low tonight? Edit: One post late on the results
10,857 in kc... for an average of 16,536. i have a feeling that la is gonna bail out the average this year.
I haven't paid too much attention to the attendance threads, but surely someone has suggested that Chicago and Dallas playing in smaller venues certainly excuses MLS of its burden just a little to match last season's attendance totals.
Pardon the blatant tooting of my own horn: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/soccer/columnist/dure/2003-04-16-dure_x.htm (Fifth-to-last graf) Also, the extended monsoon season in the Northeast isn't helping.
That anyone can complain about 10,000+ in KC is a sign of just how far they've come! (not that 10,000 is anything to be thrilled about)
A grey day and it rained before the game. Another reason why a 79,000 seat stadium kills your walkup when weather is poor. Was a nice game though, Josh Wolff played 90 minutes, scored the game winning goal, and didn't get hurt!
I don't think we can lean on LA too heavily. Based on past experience, there's no precedent to suggest they'll average 25,000. The fans didn't show up in numbers like that when the tickets were half what they are now. And I don't buy the arguement that they will now just to be a part of the new stadium experience. I'd say most of the attendees don't care overmuch about the historic impact of HDC. And I did a little research at Ticketmaster and found that a great many tickets remain unsold for upcoming matches, including the 4th. And their play to date won't exactly pack 'em in. I think they'll probably average in the 18-20,000 range. The real concern is in New England. Bad weather and a flat economy have hit everyone at the box office. But it seems that even the stalwart Revolution fans have tired of the front office's indifference, the dull atmosphere at Gillette Stadium, and the galling ticket prices. And all of this when the Revs are better than ever. Is the Gold Cup really going to have a positive impact on attendence? It didn't draw flies in LA, why would it change in NE?
In DC itself, it rained over 1 1/4 inches on Saturday and in some areas we had 2 inches of rain. The forecast earlier this week called for rain and the forecast as of late afternoon was for more rain and thunderstorms all the way through the game. It let up, mercifully, but it killed the late presale and walkup crowd. I've lost track of how many consecutive weekends we've had at least one rainy day here in DC. It feels like Seattle. The other damper on DC's attendance is the fact that DC hasn't won a game since some time back in 2002 and hasn't been in the playoffs this century. But the faithful showed up and made for a nice atmosphere for the first win of the year!
Here's a link to some sharp photos taken by a Galaxy fan at the HDC opener. For a sold-called "sellout", there certainly are a few long lines of empty seats in some parts of the stadium: http://www.janecek.com/lagalaxy/ From Joe's photos, it looks as though the sections containing the cheaper seats filled up nicely. However, there appear to be quite a few no shows in the sideline sections, particularly near the corners as shown below:
Don't underestimate the best walk up crowd in the league to go along with 8K season tickets. In So Cal, people either have season tickets, plans, or buy their tickets the day of or a few days before the event. There's probably two guaranteed sell outs left on the schedule, July 4th and the regular season home finale against SJ, moreso the July 4th game. What could bring our average down is three Wednesday games and a 1:00 start August 23rd against NE.
Maybe ticket scalpers bought up some seats and weren't unload them. My guess, though, is that AEG saw that they might fall a little short of a sellout so they, or Home Depot, "bought" the remaining tickets so they could announce the game as a sellout.
i was there. there were definitely many unused seats, though none in the upper deck where i was. of course the food lines were subsdtantial throughout and maybe some never made it back to their seats.
Whoa there Nellie... you could be opening yourself up for yellowcarding by introducing reasoning and logic to a BS thread, ... (sorry, it had to be stated).
Isn't there an "arrive late, leave early" stereotype of L.A. crowds? I know it's more likely to apply to the Dodgers and Lakers, but given the "event" status of this game, I figured it might be the case again. Hey, maybe some people left after they saw Pele. Aside from that -- yes, there are such things as concessions and bathrooms. Unless they have really, really good service at the HDC ...
I've heard about LA's walk up crowds. A little surprising since it seems like traffic from around the world vacations in LA. On further analysis, my earlier post seemed unduly pessimistic. It must be this fucking weather.