What an absolutely huge week this past week was. What has to have been a record 15 matches, and a nearly 20k average in those 15. Don Garber must be some sort of genius, he must have an IQ of 180. Always room for improvement, but it is hard to find many clouds in the currently sunny skies of MLS. Remember in this thread we discuss the: (AAQ = Attendance Analysis Quotient. This figure is an overall attendance assessment, calculated from the weighted values of average attendance, median attendance, <10K percentage and >20K percentage. A lower figure represents a better attendance performance.) This is a slight change from Andy's old formula which used simple ordinal values and provided a full ranking point separation for two numbers that may have been within a percentage. This ordinal system did not allow for fine differences to be seen, and may have painted a somewhat skewed view of the numbers (though to be honest there is not much difference in the two end of season sets). The formula to find the weighted value for each column is: Take the annual value and subtract it from the Max value for it's column. Then take that result and divide it by the (Max-Min) for its column. For example, for the average column 17869 is the max 13756 is the min 4113 is the difference To calculate the derived value for 2010 Subtract 16675 from 17869 to get 1194. Divide 1194 by 4113 then mulitply by 100* to get 29 *Note that this step is new as some people thought whole numbers would be easier to read. MLS Attendance is based on tickets distributed not tickets scanned. Therefore if a team sells or distributes X number of tickets, then X is the attendance for that match. Even if 0 people showed up for whatever reason, X would still be the official attendance. There are a number of reasons actual attendance may be lower or higher than the announced.
Last Weeks Attendance, and Upcoming Matches: An amazing 15 match week down, which saw nearly 300,000 fans attend an MLS match. With over 130k on a Wednesday night! This week we have 9 matches before us with games in Montreal which hosts Toronto for the first time. Hmmm the Bankers Cup, the Coupe de BMO, or does thing already have a name? Also a Friday night game on national tv from Livestrong, and a full Saturday in Toronto, DC, New England, Columbus, Houston, Colorado, and San Jose. Word on the street is that the San Jose match is expecting at or over 50k Comparison to This Point Last Season and All-Time Averages: On the whole we are up 8% on this point last season. That is just crazy. The rebound in Columbus is promising, though still slightly off the all time numbers they are loads better than last season, Chivas and DC remain the only teams more than 10% off last seasons pace. AAAQ Current Season and Historical End of Season: This season had now surpassed 1996 in the new measure, and remains 1st in the old as well. It was of course a matter of when not if this would happen. Milestones: Two milestones this past weekend. Both Seattle and RSL passed the 2 million mark in attendance. Seattle in match 56, and RSL in 118. RSL is the sixth fatest to this number and very close to the pace that both DC and New England set for this milestone.
that would be incredible, i have to give the front office credit for creating some buzz, pushing up their average and finally moving toward a stadium. If they do get close to 50k, then this week might see San Jose's average attendence surpass New England's. (whose FO, seems to be intentionally trying to piss off loyal fans, and is not looking for a stadium) IMHO.
Seeing how attendance historically has gone up from this point in the season, I think we may have a chance at 19k. That would be amazing.
It'll be at least 50k. It was leaked today that the game is now a sellout. And Stanford seats 50k in the stands with an unknown number in the luxury boxes. So it'll be a huge week in SJ (arguably our biggest game ever if I'm not mistaken when you consider bigger totals were double headers).
Well, we are, at this point, 8.1% higher than we were this point last season. As such, if we are 8.1% better than last years final numbers, then the average will wind up at 19,316 fans per game. That would be just under six and a quarter million fans for the year.
Considering end of the year numbers usual go above the season average, this is something that should be attainable. Kudos to the paying public.
Eleven teams over 17,000. Ten teams over 18,000. Five teams over 20,000. Only two teams below 13,000. And the old mark to beat, 14,000, well thirteen teams are above that. I'd say it's been a dynamite year thus far.
Great posts edwardgr, but one tweak: this will be TFC's second league match in Montreal, not it's first. Montreal got its first win off TFC at home on April 7th. It is their first trip to New Saputo, though.
Again, anyone reading, or especially posting in this thread should give edwardgr Rep for his original post.
I think it's worth mentioning that San Jose's game this coming weekend will mark the 4th game this year over 45,000 (3rd over 50,000, should it get there) - none of which have been associated with double-headers. And there should be at least 3 more over that mark to come (Seattle at home vs LA, Vancouver and Portland - although those three are "bundled" with the Chelsea match). edit: reread the milestone post and figured out the answer to my question - so that part of my post has been deleted (not that it matters!).
Ed, great work as always! The numbers are mind boggling. 6 years ago I think many of us would have scoffed at this type of consistency. If you get a chance, in your attachment, could you add in where we are % wise in the current season?
2011 Games Played: 306 Total Attnd: 5,467,880 Average Attnd: 17,869 Median Attnd: 17,639 Median-33%: 11,765 Median+33%: 23,530 <MED-33%: 56 / 18.3% >MED+33%: 36 / 11.8% Average %CAP: 81.0% Median %CAP: 85.7% Games <70%: 86 / 28.1% Games >90%: 139 / 45.4% 2012 Games Played: 146 Total Attnd: 2,722,25 Average Attnd: 18,650 Median Attnd: 18,195 Median-33%: 12,136 Median+33%: 24,272 <MED-33%: 25 / 17.1% >MED+33%: 14 / 9.6% Average %CAP: 82.5% Median %CAP: 86.2% Games <70%: 38 / 26.0% Games >90%: 65 / 44.5% NOTES 1. For information regarding 2011 stadium capacities go HERE. 2. Per 2012 MLS Team Media Guides the following are the standard capacities for each team's regular home stadium: CHI (20,000); CHV (18,800); COL (18,086); CLB (20,145); DCU (19,647); FCD (20,500); HOU (22,000); LAG (27,000); MTL (20,341); NER (20,000); NYR (25,000); PHI (18,500); POR (20,438); RSL (20,213); SJE (10,525); SEA (38,500); SKC (18,467); TFC (21,140); VAN (21,000) 3. The following are capacity exceptions to the norms above: MON 3/17 (58,500); SJE 3/17 (41,915); MTL 4/7 (22,000); MTL 4/28 (22,000); MTL 5/12 (58,500); MTL 5/19 (22,000); SEA 6/20 (64,000); 4. Some listed capacities are "seated only" and teams may have sold/had SRO attendance over this amount, thus putting the %CAP over 100% for certain games. For calculating the average and median %CAP for all games these 100%+ numbers were used as is.
The Quakes played the back end of WWC double header at the old Stanford Stadium in 1999. 73,000 fans. Though about 60,000 of them left during the Neil Diamond impersonator concert between acts. San Jose also drew over 50,000 at Candlestick a few years ago for a double header that included Barcelona and (I think) Club America. Edit: I have now read the last line of your post. So in any case, these were the two highest attended Quakes games.
As I said, double headers don't count if you're using them to gauge actual interest in the team instead of just the out of context numbers. I was at the Candlestick game and attendance was under 20k during the Quakes game (despite anounced attendance being over 60k). The rest of the crowd was still in the parking lot tailgating until the Barca game. And you already pointed out the problem with the WWC game at the old Staford Stadium. This weekends game will easily be the Quakes most impressive number to date by simple virtue of it being all them.
I wonder what makes sense in double headers. MLS game 1st, or MLS game second. The Revs double header this August is AC Milan/Cruzeiro first, Revs second. I really don't know how many people will stick around.
it typically does not matter. Historically if the MLS team plays first, many people come into the stadium at half time of the MLS game. If the MLS team plays second, many people leave at half time of the MLS game.
I'd say first should work better. People might arrive early (as they would anyway) but are unlikely to stay late. Plus people are used to the nightcap being the "main event".
MLS game first. It's far better to see people trickling into the game during the second half as the "big" game approaches than to see them all file out in the warm up and early first half of the MLS game. I've been to both and the latter is just depressing. Though I can see the benefit of the latter if some people stay around they might be exposed to MLS and change their opinion of it. But from an atmosphere perspective having the MLS game first is just far better.
I wonder how the season average for the 10th best team (by definition the median attendance TEAM in a 19 team league) compares to, for example, the halfway point between the #9 and #10 teams in Holland, or the #10 and #11 teams in Italy. Point being, in terms of "top to bottom" attendance, MLS is one of the world leaders. I doubt there are many leagues in the world where the median team is over 18,000. Germany and England, sure. Spain, France, Mexico, Italy? I doubt it for most of them.
Mexico is about 23,500 (for last years Clausura) http://www.worldfootball.net/zuschauer/mex-primera-division-2011-2012-clausura/1/ Spain is about 23,400 http://www.football-lineups.com/tourn/La_Liga_2011-2012/Stats/Home_Avg_Atte/ Italy is close to 18,000 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/attendance/_/league/ita.1/italian-serie-a?cc=5901 Holland is a little over 17,000 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/attendance/_/league/ned.1/dutch-eredivisie?cc=5901 France is a little over 15,000 http://soccernet.espn.go.com/stats/attendance/_/league/fra.1/french-ligue-1?cc=5901
Look at the attachment in the second post in the thread. At the bottom are the individual team attendance numbers.
So MLS is at best #5 in the world by this metric. Y'all help me out here...is there another league that might be stronger than MLS by this metric? Wikipedia has China's average attendance at 17,651, so it's unlikely their median team tops 18K.