While league attendance is basically flat since last year, at the club level there has been quite a bit of change in some cases: Team..............2001........2002......% change Colorado.........16,481......20,311........+23% NY/NJ.............20,806.....18,430.........-11% Los Angeles.....17,387......17,984.........+3% Columbus........17,511......17,042..........-1% New England....15,654......16,751.........+7% DC United........21,518......16,642........-23% Dallas.............12,574......13,178..........+5% Chicago..........16,388.......12,474........-24% Kansas City.....10,954.......11,715.........+7% San Jose..........9,635.........9,590..........0%
Any ideas on what the cause of the DC drop is? Fewer (or less succesful) doubleheaders than last year? Or has poor play on the field finally started to take its toll at the ticket window?
Quickly on MLS Website for 2001, D.C. United attendances: 36,528 May 12 30,277 June 30 54,282 September 1 (Honduras-US game?) This year top 3 30,413 May 12 24,240 July 27 20,105 May 18 So, seems like both fewer and less successful double-headers are the culprit. Probably some erosion of fan support due to general suckiness, too, but there's 50,000 fans difference just from those three dates, a 3,500 fan swing in season average, making up most of the 23% difference.
Yeah. I've been finding myself thinking that the end of this year not having and qualifiers might have a small effect on how the September numbers turn out.
Re: Re: Attendence: Week 24 So will having season-ending games this year as opposed to the abrupt cancellation last year. Sachin
Your math is faulty, because you aren't actually removing Tampa and Miami from the league. You are just removing their home games and making them play 14 games each on the road. Seriously, though, the average without Tampa and Miami playing in any games is in the 15,700-15,799 range, according to someone who did the math (was it dcuinvermont?) Contraction got rid of the two bleeders, but we also have Chicago in Naperville where capacity was close to 10,000 for their first few games. That kinda cancels things out. Soooooo, if you really want to fairly compare (IMHO) the two seasons, you should compare MLS last year without Tampa, Miami, and Chicago to this year without Chicago. - Paul
Last year 1 doubleheader was the qualifier and the other two were WUSA. WUSA was new, Freedom were drawing very well. This year Doubleheader was WC Warmup match and WUSA attendence was much lower than last year. So the doubleheader were less attractive but in addition to this, United attendence is dropping due to the team sucking. 3 years of terrible play and last year was a total lack of effort late in the season.