Major League Soccer Now 3rd-Most Attended Pro Sport

Pro wrestling? Really?

 

No, and I addressed that already.

That's only if you're getting the stadium capacity at each game .... which the Lakers don't. In fact, last year only 6 teams did. So apparently you can't charge whatever you want.

Isn't more conducive to making money though, to make your ancillary revenue streams available to more people ? I mean say with an average ticket price 3-4$ less but anywhere from 5-10K more people available for the ancillary revenue streams I'm willing to bet I'm pulling in more money.

Yes ...

... I mean, how is it not relevant to the point you made about "not being watchable from distance because the area is so small."

 

because rings are significantly smaller than basketball courts and hockey rinks, and therefore there's no such thing as an obstructed view or not being able to adequately see the action on one half of the field?

Imagine sitting in endzone seats during a basketball game, it would be terrible.

 

It can be spun any way you want - and there are many ways to spin it - but the fact remains: the MLS has the 3rd highest average attended league in US professional sport.

 

LOL wut ? You've never been to a pro wrestling event have you ?

over half the seats at the "floor" level are obstructed because you're directly in line with the rows of people in front of you. There's no tiered structure until you actually get into the seating of the arena. There's also the crammed sections up by the entrance ramp/stage as well.

You do realize that those seats already exist ... right ? I mean it's clear that people have an issue with not being able to "adequately see action on one half of the field" as it stands ..... no.

 

compare the sightlines from the Silverdome:



to those from the Palace:



this should be obvious

 

The NBA isn't on strike.

 

To add to Brodie's point. Here's how the game looked in the Cowboy's new stadium.



Yeah not the best view.

 

^ Which is exactly why I stated in an arena built for basketball ... those aren't.

 

Ok, they're locked out. My mistake.

Anyway, my point was that their attendance is currently 0, so that stat about having the 3rd best average attendance of any American sports league seemed a bit presumptuous.

 

Really dude? You really think you they're using NBA attendance figures from a season that doesn't even exist? Obviously they were comparing attendance figures from the 2010-11 season.

 

Doesn't matter that much. The views are going to turn to crap pretty soon after 20k. If that weren't the case, NBA arenas would be built bigger than that.

 

Yes 3rd highest average is not the same as 3rd most attended.

Also if we compare all Norh America, since we have Canadian teams, maybe we fall to 4th average, does anyone know the CFL average?

http://markosun.wordpress.com/2011/11/13/cfl-2011-regular-season-attendance/

quick glance at the above article would tell me 28-29K average for the CFL.

Well Aren't some College stadiums bigger?

If not, I think 25K would be easily possible, but that would mean removing those highly profitable box seats, that is not going to happen.

But I imagine if the united center gor rid of the sky-boxes and put in regular seats the total seats would go up to 23 - 24K.

But I am sure teams prefer sky-boxes over regular seats, shit I think the NBA would be happy selling out at 10K tickets if they were all at sky-box prices.

 

If the view was good in, let's say, the 30,000th seat, both the NBA and NHL would probably build 30k arenas, play 50 or so games, and make each game that much more of a television product (particularly in the NBA, the only thing that holds regular season games back from being a TV draw is the perception that they are only a tiny part of the season and therefore aren't appointment viewing). With the shorter season, they'd be able to charge more for the rafter seats. . . if they didn't suck.

 

Considering that the MLS is the 77th best soccer league in the world, that's an impressive feat.

http://www.majorleaguesoccertalk.com/mls-ranks-shockingly-low-in-iffhs-study-647

 

lol, 77th?


I could maybe think of 20 leagues that are stronger than MLS, but that's it. Personally I think MLS is somewhere between 12-18. But 77th? We wouldn't even make it out of the group stage of the CCL if we were that low.

 

Well it depends on how you rank leagues.

Most rankings only take into account the top teams.

By CCL and Libertadores rankings, MLS would be about 7th or 10th in the Americas.

Then add another 10 or so in Europe, maybe 1 or 2 in Asia. that would take us to 20th or 22nd, then I am not sure about Africa.

 

Um that list is nearly 3 years old, so I'd take it with a grain of salt, especially when it is almost solely based on continental results and RSL was in the Concacaf final last year.

 

MLS doesn't seem to feel that way. If it did, it wouldn't be making a priority of building stadiums that hold about 20,000 each, since the NFL's per-game average last season was more than 67,000. This pretty strongly implies that MLS feels that the route to gaining respect is something other than outdrawing the NFL.

 

Aside from a few baseball teams and some college football teams, who can outdraw the NFL on a regular basis?

Averaging 20k and getting more for the odd blockbuster match is probably the most realistic goal that MLS can have.

 

Well, High School Gridiron in Texas packs em in every week, and it's low quality Gridiron, substandard to junior colleges. But the tickets are cheap.

The main reason this league gets the attendance it does is because of cheap and, many times, free tickets. Many youth teams will get free tix to games. They don't even know much about the teams they watch. But they're there because their coach gathered em up and took em.

 

Many? There are a few teams where the group sales/youth sales mentality is a major thrust, but I don't know what percentage of actual papering goes on. You also can't say "many" of the people at matches in Seattle, Portland etc. are youth team freebies, but instead actually soccer fans living in the US/Canada who are actually supporting their local team.

 

Overall level is hard to measure, I mean what is the overall level of the EPL, how do you average Man city and Norwich city?

There is also no International tournament for say the worst teams in some leagues.

The only statistics we have is for best teams, everything else is mostly opinions that can't be proven or backed up.

But I would agree, by average MLS would rank higher than by best teams rankings. I mean the Scottish League would have a huge drop if we go by overall league.