And here we go. Week 14 was relatively light on games, and thanks to a 50k match in San Jose the week ended well over 21k not to shabby. As you may have seen in the placeholder note (since deleted) my wife is out of town this week, which is why this is late and I am out of town next week so there is real liklihood that I will not post week 16 until I am back from DC. We will see how things go this weekend with so many Sunday matches. 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:16 big matches on tap during this July 4th week. I was perusing one of the other Major League sites, in this case Major League Lacrosse (yes such thing exists) to see if by any chance the Outlaws (Denver) were playing in town while I would be there later this month. And I find that they are also hosting on 7/4 for those Denver readers has this been the case since the Rapids moved out to DSG? Does Bowlen put on a Fireworks display as well? OT I know but it bothers me if he is attempting to muscle in on that excellent Rapids tradition. Comparison to This Point Last Season and All-Time Averages:So not much change since last week, but signs of encouragement in several places. AAAQ Current Season and Historical End of Season: Well this season continues to shine pulling away in both measures, with a very realistic chance of finishing 1st in all measures at season's end. How amazing would that be? Through this past weekend MLS has played 155 matches or 48% of the season. Of those 155 matches, 103 have topped 15k. The standard deviation is 8556, and the median of team medians is 18219. Milestones: None to report this week.
Note that when you say "relatively light on games", I end up with a flashback to the days when a full weekend meant that five games were being played. I'm not dead sure I'm watching the same league that existed a decade ago sometimes.
I'm just thrilled that none of the matches were even close to 10,000. The worst offender this week was Montreal with over 14K in the house. Could be a little fan fatigue there with three games in two weeks.
Ed, great work as always. If you get a chance in the following weeks, can you add to the spread sheet how far along we are into the season % wise like we used to track before?
Yes they do have fireworks at that MLL game. Last year they set their attendance record on the 4th with a crowd of 27,184.
San Jose last week and this week, this is what 50,391 will do to average attendance. NYRB game drew over 40k at Stanford last year, they should try for an extra game or two there next year. The Galaxy come back up here Sunday October 21, the second to last week of the regular season. I'm sure almost everyone who attended this weekend would want to buy a ticket for that one...
Yes, Bowles hated to lose the revenue from the Rapids big 4th of July game/fireworks show in Invesco so as soon as the Rapids moved to the Dick he had the Outlaws (which he owns I believe) scheduled into Invesco every 4th of July with a big fireworks show.
If they wanted to they might be able to get that Galaxy game into Stanford as well since Stanford is across the bay in Berkeley that weekend. Still I doubt they will do to the short lead time and undoubtedly issues Stanford would have with sharing in the middle of their season.
Fun with Excel. I noticed another trend with edwardgr 's data, that again (as has been the reoccurring theme) points towards the health progress of the league, so I thought I would throw it into an excel graph. Early on in the leagues lifetime, the novelty, and therefore attendance tended to peak at the start of the season, and would dissipate as the season marched towards it's conclusion. This was of course most pronounced and obvious in the inaugural season, but it actually was a trend up through about season 5-6 or so. The more recent trend, of course, has been that from the mid-point (round-about now) to season's end, that we would see an increase in attendance (fan interest) as we approach the finish line. The following 4 graphs show the delta between where we were at this point in each past season, and the end of that season. Points above the Zero line show an increase in that category, and below the line shows a decrease. It is nothing new, but it is nice to reflect that we as fans have matured to the point that rather than being excited about the novelty, we are more excited about the race.
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: 155 Total Attnd: 2,915,672 Average Attnd: 18,811 Median Attnd: 18,207 Median-33%: 12,144 Median+33%: 24,288 <MED-33%: 25 / 16.1% >MED+33%: 15 / 9.7% Average %CAP: 83.0% Median %CAP: 86.9% Games <70%: 38 / 24.5% Games >90%: 70 / 45.2% 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); SJE 6/30 (50,000; 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.
Is DSG even allowed to host fireworks? the stadium complex borders a dedicated wildlife area (formerly a weapons dumping ground).
Yes, every year so far and despite the conditions in Colorado the Commerce City FD has concluded tomorrow's show can go on.
Crap why do I keep forgetting that this year. Thanks for keeping me on task, sometimes I need it. I have gone back to the original post and updated.
What a douche I knew I disliked him for a reason. Sorry Broncos fans I know he saved the team and all but he can die in a wild bronc and outlaw stampede for all I care.
Any chance you could repost, replacing the season numbers with 2 digit year? Makes things just a little easier to figure out at a glance. But fantastic work on this either way.
With the way the 1996 numbers fall off a cliff the second half, I think the safe money is on this season sweeping all categories in 1st place.
Here is a fun factoid to show how stable attendance has become. We have had four games under 10k all season so far in 2012. Look at just one day in 2000 Saturday, July 8, 2000 Los Angeles at Miami 8,212 DC United at Dallas 9,394 Columbus at Chicago 10,879 MetroStars at Kansas City 5,810 San Jose at Colorado 7,520