Lancers finish the season with a total attendance of 82,694, or 6,361 per game. An increase of about 12% over last year. Not bad. Baltimore finishes at 5,545 per game, a 7% decrease from last season.
Thanks- but those are 2 team we DON'T need to worry about It's Chicago/Syracuse and personally I think Wichita How happy can Wink be barely filling half of his 5,000 seat arena up? Wichita baffles the hell out of me. The crowds they draw are very passionate and into the games.. but you mean to tell me pulling in 3500-4,000 per game is so tough?
And there is still one game unaccounted for, unless Kenn or someone else dug up numbers for the New Year's Day game.
Baltimore finishes down 7% from last year's average. Yet no one will ever re-think their 1970s-era idea that all you have to do is win and you'll draw. Rochester will break Baltimore's nine-year streak of leading the league in attendance. Well done by them. Officially listed in the league media guide as 5,400. Have you seen the number of people who work for the Wolves? The Wolves have been around for 20 years. They just won the 500th game in their history over the weekend. They have 43 people in their front office, including at least seven whose primary responsibility is to sell tickets, which is at least five and sometimes six more than most MISL teams seem to have. As the biggest city in indoor since...shoot, I don't know, when's the last time we had a team in LA or New York proper? Indoor gets lost in Chicago, and putting it in the sticks doesn't help (having it in the West Loop didn't help, either, because the Storm's hierarchy didn't know what they were doing). So, yeah, they do have a challenge. The Wolves ( a ) have been at this for a long time, ( b ) do things in an almost-major-league way and ( c ) play hockey, which is far more popular in a lot of places, Chicago being one. You know why indoor doesn't work in Chicago? The reasons above, plus the one too many people overlook: it really doesn't work in most places. Not anymore. Why would 22 of the last 27 indoor teams to start playing at the top level go under if indoor worked? Why would we have a smaller league (7 teams) at the top level today that we had ten years ago (8 teams) if indoor worked? Why would we have two - two - top-level teams that have been around more than three years if indoor worked? How much evidence do you people need, actually?
The Chicago Wolves are run in a first class manner. There is no indoor soccer team that is run anywhere nearly as well as the Wolves. In the late 90's, there were head to head games that the Wolves outsold the Blackhawks. That team is minor league in terms of the actual league they play within, nothing else. Kenn is right, indoor soccer is not working. It is a niche sport within a niche sport. Incredibly the outdoor soccer fans all look down on indoor as a weird little version of the game with a level of indignation. The same level of indignation that outdoor fans despise when your average American fan looks down on soccer.
4,695...two games with that number, including the opener. But their final home game last season was announced at 5,200...
what killed Baltimore Was the huge soccer tournament that took place in November this kept the groups away . Lack of advertising besides radio interviews and a add Seen on the phone book that was about it . The snow storm killed Christian youth night They did the following promotions at 1 x and that made no sense to me at all Army Night , HOF Night , Boy Scouts Night , Girl scouts Night , Mini Soccer ball Night Im surprised that it was only 7%
I don't disagree with your points, yes, the Blast caught a bit of bad luck with games impacted by weather, other events and the larger numbers of dates before Christmas, but so did everyone else. There are any number of things that are impacting the attendance and I don't think advertising is going to fix them. You own a business, how much advertising do you buy? Not much I bet, because you know as well as I do that fewer and fewer people read the paper and/or listen to over the air radio. Buying traditional media advertising is not cost effective. Case in point, a woman and her family sat next to me at the Blast/Wave game, she was engaged in the game and she and her kids were having a great time. When I asked how many games a year they attended, she replied that they go to one game a year with a group from work that buys a large block of tickets. The idea of going to the games with just her family was not on her radar, no particular reason, it just never occurred to her because she has always only gone as part of a group. Advertising is not going to make a difference to that woman and the many like her. Building the season ticket base, getting the people in groups to view the games as something other than a night out with the people from work, getting the people and businesses that buy tickets to actually come and contribute to the atmosphere at the games will build the attendance, but it is a slow process and takes people and money do do this well. There is no quick fix, if there is a fix at all.
I think good advertising can help sports teams, and I've seen several examples of that in the Chicago area. I think advertising is especially important for a new team, and I've been surprised by the lack of advertising from the Chicago Soul. I think it's a reason they have done so poorly at the gate, though there are certainly other reasons.
I don't know what happened to The Sun, but their graphics and photos are almost unviewable. I think the Blast ads are pretty unattractive, but the print quality of the paper has gotten so bad you almost can't see them. I think indoor soccer suffers from two things. One in most cities (especially outside Baltimore, Milwaukee, Dallas and maybe San Diego) people don't know a team exists. Even in the four cities I mentioned a lot of people don't realize those teams still exist or are playing again. Two, even if people have some general awareness about the teams they have no idea when the games are. Obviously if they really wanted to they could find a schedule in 5 seconds online, but the sport is flying very low on the radar.
i dont buy any advertising at all , i sell sports cards they sell bu them selves i do auctions like ebay and lelands , huggens and scott so they do all the advertising for my items that i send them
8,009 announced but there were not that many in the building. I'd guess around 6,500 or so. Still a very nice crowd nonetheless.
Need 5,992 now tomorrow to average 5,000 for the year. It's possible. And just 1,390 to set a new attendance record since the move back to "The Cell".
I had estimated about 7000 in the building, but clearly the largest in-house crowd of the season. I don't say this to be critical, but the Wave sold many tickets at $7.00/ea. Maybe that is the price point for indoor soccer. As with tonight's meaningless game, tomorrow's equally meaningless game is also featuring $7.00 seats. Interesting to see the attendance in the season finale. Hopefully the game won't be as Dullsville as tonight. (For those of you that weren't there or watching, Syracuse's only dressed GK Brian O'Quinn suffered a right knee injury midway through the first quarter. Field player Derek Popovich played in goal for the balance of the game). Because of the GK injury, Syracuse played the indoor version of 11-in-the-box... like they were playing for penalty kicks.
Fun fact- In a meaningless game, the Wave (8,009) outdrew a MLS home opener in LA (Chivas drew 7,121 v. Columbus) Saturday night.
6,583 at The Cell this afternoon. Wave finish the season with a 5,045 average attendance, up 28% from last season and a new all-time attendance record since moving back to US Cellular Arena!
I made it there and had a great time! So did my whole family. I also said hi to a Wave fan who I met at the Sears Centre on President's Day. My kids were sitting right by the area where the Wings players entered and left and got to high five them. The players were very nice to the kids.
Okay, there are still 3 Chicago home games with no attendance figures reported, so I'll update this as soon as I get those numbers. But not counting those, here's a comparison of attendance from last year to this year. Included for each team is the average attendance, % change from the previous year, median attendance, maximum and minimum crowds, as well as % of games under 3,000 and over 5,000. Overall, some good-looking trends for the league (outside of Wichita). 2011-12 MISL Season Team Played Average % Change Median < 3K > 5K Max Min Baltimore Blast 12 5,962 -14.0% 5,800 8.3% 66.7% 9,644 2,316 Rochester Lancers 12 5,675 N/A 5,570 0.0% 83.3% 7,210 3,997 Missouri Comets 12 4,092 +1.9% 3,892 16.7% 8.3% 8,276 2,853 Milwaukee Wave 12 3,955 -12.7% 3,336 0.0% 25.0% 5,964 3,059 Wichita Wings 12 3,809 N/A 3,865 25.0% 8.3% 5,200 2,538 Syracuse Silver Knights 12 2,951 N/A 2,901 58.3% 0.0% 3,892 2,317 Norfolk Sharx 12 1,596 N/A 1,385 91.7% 0.0% 3,422 635 MISL Totals 84 4,006 -0.1% 3,700 28.6% 27.4% 9,644 635 2012-13 MISL Season Team Played Average % Change Median < 3K > 5K Max Min Rochester Lancers 13 6,361 +12.1% 5,365 0.0% 92.3% 10,320 4,191 Baltimore Blast 13 5,545 -7.0% 6,311 0.0% 61.5% 7,060 3,038 Milwaukee Wave 13 5,045 +27.6% 5,071 0.0% 53.8% 8,009 3,615 Missouri Comets 13 4,238 +3.6% 4,239 0.0% 23.1% 5,481 3,026 Syracuse Silver Knights 13 3,402 +15.3% 3,376 23.1% 0.0% 4,567 2,468 Wichita Wings 13 2,740 -28.1% 2,500 76.9% 0.0% 4,500 2,000 Chicago Soul 10 2,366 N/A 2,212 80.0% 0.0% 3,488 1,572 MISL Totals 88 4,306 +7.5% 4,051 23.9% 34.1% 10,320 1,572
And you think that's "100% accurate?" That's cute. It would not only be virtually unprecedented for anyone's announced figures in this sport to be 100% accurate, it would be virtually unprecedented in any lower-level sport. It simply doesn't work that way. No one's announced figures are actual drop-counts. You can operate Excel. Good for you. But you have no idea how the business works. The Wave shows one of the biggest percentage increases in average announced attendance in indoor soccer in the last 12 years (fifth-best since 2002, actually, the four ahead of them have since folded), and that doesn't raise your eyebrow at all? It just came out of nowhere? 28%, when the average over the last dozen years is 1% per team per year? Seems like whoever was in charge of that should have been promoted to president and they wouldn't have had to hire Sue Black.