Crap. I'll crunch the numbers myself: . . . . . w/o mia/tb . . w/ mia/tb 1999 . . . 14,959 . . . 14,282 2000 . . . 14,815 . . . 13,756 2001 . . . 15,851 . . . 14,961 So, sure, finishing with a final average in the mid-15,000 range would be a good--a sign of consolidation after last year's growth. Hey, I'll take consolidating real gains over the opposite potential--p$$$ing it away--any time. But I don't know if I would call it growth as such.
You also should factor in the fire's stadium situation which has affected their numbers by about 4k this year and no world cup qualifying doubleheaders this year.
I like this post a lot. I think the league has done very well for itself this year. It went through a month and a half of having absolutely no focus on itself. (World Cup) It seems that more organizations are posting actual attendance figures (LA). SJ is improving attendence after a disastrous off-season. DC United is still posting great numbers, despite a few years of a horrible product. Finally, they seem to be turning it around with a strong backline, and a hard-working team ethic. I only see positives. The attendance would be above 16K w/o Naperville. Who knows, we may still make it. However, there is still a lot of work to be done.
Maybe dcu discounted away games for Miami and Tampa, as well. This may have skewed the home averages for the rest of the teams. - Paul
Nice, but a quick calculation showed this wasn't the case. (In 1999, the 128 non-Florida games--both home and away--averaged 14,832.) In any event, the teams weren't dropped because they were bad road draws.