Not much of an intro this week. With the down time and the difficulties in getting the table formatted I have not had followed as closely as I should have. So sorry for that. 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.
I frankly expected larger numbers for this past week, I guess it was not meant to be. Last Weeks Games: Code: New England 6149 Seattle 39002 San Jose 8734 Chivas USA 14652 Toronto 18364 Seattle 38399 Vancouver 19271 Los Angeles 27000 Kansas City 20404 Real Salt Lake 18219 Portland 20438 FC Dallas 11702 Total 242334 Average 20195 Comparison to This Point Last Season and All-Time Averages: ....will return when I figure out how to make code pretty again. However with the dropoff last season and a decent rise this week are overall up just over 9% over this time last season.
Yoshou, since you have the columns figured out can you post for this week and I will try and figure out why the heck it is not working for me.
Good thing I was playing catch-up on the attendance today. Anyways, here's the AAAQ and EOS tables: Code: Year Average Median <10k >20k AvgPts MedPts <10kPts >20kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk 1996 21750 20158 14.3% 52.4% 0 0 33 0 33 1 1997 15950 14390 19% 21.4% 66 71 48 73 258 8 1998 14479 12325 18% 18% 83 97 45 81 305 13 1999 14292 13673 28% 18% 85 80 76 81 322 14 2000 12949 12922 32% 10% 100 89 88 100 377 17 2001 14709 14381 19.5% 12.2% 80 71 49 95 296 11 2002 16401 13779 16.7% 25% 61 79 41 65 245 6 2003 13334 12518 35.9% 15.4% 96 94 100 87 377 16 2004 15436 13417 23.1% 28.2% 72 83 60 57 273 10 2005 13961 12071 28% 14% 89 100 76 91 355 15 2006 16759 15968 18% 20% 57 52 45 76 230 5 2007 14973 14173 15.7% 17.6% 77 74 38 82 271 9 2008 15690 15024 12.7% 29.1% 69 63 28 55 216 4 2009 14530 13421 18.6% 15.3% 82 83 47 88 300 12 2010 16154 13611 15.9% 23.8% 64 81 38 67 250 7 2011 17050 16726 8.8% 28.8% 53 42 16 56 168 3 2012 18537 18152 3.5% 31.8% 37 25 0 49 110 2 Code: EOS Average Median <10k >20k AvgPts MedPts <10kPts >20kPts AAAQ AAAQRnk 1996 17410 15093 21.9% 26.3% 11 44 57 20 132 5 1997 14606 12733 25% 16.3% 79 85 67 78 310 13 1998 14312 11871 26.6% 16.1% 86 100 73 79 339 14 1999 14282 12973 32.3% 15.1% 87 81 93 85 346 15 2000 13756 12690 34.4% 12.5% 100 86 100 100 386 16 2001 14961 13431 26.6% 17.7% 71 73 73 70 286 11 2002 15821 14108 17.1% 18.6% 50 61 40 65 216 7 2003 14900 13719 23.3% 18% 72 68 62 68 270 10 2004 15549 13223 24.7% 25.3% 56 77 66 26 225 8 2005 15112 12619 27.1% 17.7% 67 87 75 70 299 12 2006 15426 14113 19.3% 18.2% 59 61 48 67 235 9 2007 16767 15353 8.2% 29.7% 27 40 9 0 76 2 2008 16460 15188 11% 24.8% 34 42 19 28 124 4 2009 16037 14686 14.7% 20.9% 45 51 32 51 179 6 2010 16675 15332 7.5% 22.5% 29 40 7 42 118 3 2011 17869 17639 5.6% 28.1% 0 0 0 9 9 1
And just so everyone can see the team changes: Code: Team Played 2012 2011 Diff %Diff Alltime %Diff CHV 5 12868 17118 -4251 -24.8% 15863 7.9% CHI 3 14243 14278 -34 -0.2% 15529 -8.1% COL 4 14505 13243 1262 9.5% 13971 -5.2% CLB 4 13043 10962 2081 19% 15238 -28.1% FCD 6 13681 14258 -577 -4% 12203 16.8% DCU 6 13751 16344 -2593 -15.9% 17194 -4.9% SKC 5 17503 18107 -604 -3.3% 11386 59% LAG 6 23197 24496 -1299 -5.3% 22067 11% MON 3 33752 ----- ---- ----- ----- ----- NER 3 9821 9333 488 5.2% 15610 -40.2% NYR 4 17426 17398 29 0.2% 17159 1.4% PHI 4 18343 17762 581 3.3% 18725 -5.1% POR 5 20438 18627 1811 9.7% 18827 -1.1% RSL 6 18344 16089 2255 14% 16828 -4.4% SJE 5 12360 9879 2481 25.1% 12820 -22.9% SEA 6 38513 36306 2206 6.1% 35329 2.8% TFC 5 19022 19593 -571 -2.9% 20264 -3.3% VAN 5 18615 20863 -2248 -10.8% 20412 2.2%
On the good news front, we won't have to delete out the Houston row on the pivot tables after this weekend. It should be a very good weekend, IMHO. A Seattle home game, Houston's first game in their sweet new digs, a Philly game, and the Beckham/Donovan/Keane North American tour hits Montreal and rumor has it they'll be packed to the gills.
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: 85 Total Attnd: 1,583,224 Average Attnd: 18,626 Median Attnd: 18,197 Median-33%: 12,137 Median+33%: 24,275 <MED-33%: 16 / 18.8% >MED+33%: 9 / 10.6% Average %CAP: 81.8% Median %CAP: 85.8% Games <70%: 22 / 25.9% Games >90%: 37 / 43.5% 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) 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.
You have SKC at an average of 17,503, am I reading your table correctly? SKC average for 2012 is 19,017. 3/17 New England - 19,777 3/25 FC Dallas - 15,161 4/7 LAG - 20,323 4/14 RSL - 19,422 5/5 Montreal - 20,404 Total 95,087 Average 19,017
That is really odd.. I'll have to look at the data. For some reason I have 12k for the 3/17 game. I must have switched attendances somewhere. If you notice any other errors, please PM me and I'll make updates.
? Some of the %diff values are negative when attendance decreases, and some are negative when attendance increases. Also, is the %diff column on the right supposed to be the change between this season and all time, or the change between last season and all time. I think it's currently the %diff between 2011 and all time -- has it always been that? I thought I was used to comparing the current season's attendance to all-time attendance in that last column. Thanks for doing this though. I don't want to seem like a whiner. EDIT: Oops, the answer to my 2nd question would answer the 1st question. There's no mistake in calculating the differences (leading to increases being both negative and positive). It's all in what the last comparison is. Sorry.
Heh. You're correct on both counts. I screwed up and was using 2011's numbers to get the last %Diff when I should have been using 2012's numbers. Thanks for catching all the errors. I was doing this on the fly and didn't do any validations before posting. *sigh* Here's the updates with, hopefully, less errors. Code: Team Played 2012 2011 Diff %Diff Alltime %Diff CHV 5 12868 17118 -4251 -24.8% 15863 -18.9% CHI 3 14243 14278 -34 -0.2% 15529 -8.3% COL 4 14505 13243 1262 9.5% 13971 3.8% CLB 4 13043 10962 2081 19% 15238 -14.4% FCD 6 13681 14258 -577 -4% 12203 12.1% DCU 6 13751 16344 -2593 -15.9% 17194 -20% SKC 5 19017 18107 910 5% 11386 67% LAG 6 23197 24496 -1299 -5.3% 22067 5.1% MON 3 33752 ----- ---- --- ----- ----- NER 3 9821 9333 488 5.2% 15610 -37.1% NYR 4 17426 17398 29 0.2% 17159 1.6% PHI 4 18343 17762 581 3.3% 18725 -2% POR 5 20438 18627 1811 9.7% 18827 8.6% RSL 6 18344 16089 2255 14% 16828 9% SJE 5 12360 9879 2481 25.1% 12820 -3.6% SEA 6 38513 36306 2206 6.1% 35329 9% TFC 5 19022 19593 -571 -2.9% 20264 -6.1% VAN 5 18615 20863 -2248 -10.8% 20412 -8.8%
Thanks. I just thought it looked sad for RSL to have a negative number there while touting a big-ass average so far this year. That might actually be an interesting point for some who read this thread: RSL has done particularly well in these early games. It's been a well-accepted "fact" in the RSL forum for the last few years that the team's attendance really doesn't get going until after Memorial day. So to have 18k+ on average (and a low above last year's average) is quite the achievement. I couldn't tell you what's different this year. Interesting data, though!
A huge huge thanks to Yoshou for jumping in and posting the numbers. Hopefully I will be back online with the nicely presented posts by next weeks thread.
FC Dallas is making tomorrow nights game a two for one trade in deal for season ticket holders, you can exchange 1 ticket to a missed game for two seats to the Sounders game.
You may be confusing a capacity number and attendance. When Ole lists 41k for San Jose that was a capacity number. Assuming I am guessing correctly. Your post is not very clear what you are trying to communicate.
I don't think these numbers are all that relevant. The +33% number is mathematically impossible for the vast majority of teams in the league, so I don't find the comparison of these two numbers relevant to anything other than to promote meaningless discussion around a meaningless stat. To show just how meaningless this +33% number is, go figure what the +33% number is in the NFL and calculate how many NFL games were played at that level. I don't think you'd get any.
and with the number of season tickets some teams have it is mathematically impossible for 5-6 teams to ever be below 10K (or even 12K for that matter). you are confusing the purpose of the metric. it isn't to parse the individual situations of any team or teams ... it is to accurately reflect, for the entire data set of MLS games, which ones would be considered "good" or "poor" based off of, instead of set and immovable (and no longer relevant with the currently higher league wide median) markers of 10K/20K, more mathematically sound % +/- the median. it is simply an improvement on the 10K/20K which are entirely irrelevant in a league where the median is over 18K ... i mean who cares if a game is 20K in a league where the median is only 2K less than that number ... it is not a significant achievement ... likewise being below 10K in this era of MLS is nearly impossible and not simply "poor" but positively wretched (seeing as how is more than 8K below the median. you don't tweak the metric to account for every individual team's situation ... the metric is meant as an assessment of the whole data set which includes all sorts of attendances both high and low for all sorts of reasons ... some that change over season to season ... some that stay the same. but having said that i only put that particular metric in there because A. it is an improvement over the 10K/20K and measures the same thing only more mathematically accurately and B. somebody asked that i keep reporting it. but in all honesty the best measures for "good" and "bad" attendance performances is the %CAP anyway which is why i came up with it and am reporting on it. %CAP eliminates even the issue you are worried about basing each individual game's performance good or bad on a scale tailored specifically to that game namely by that of capacity. now there are of course issues with what exactly is the capacity for each game sometimes, with non-sss or one off events and such but for the most part the way i am measuring it is consistent and fair ... whether the thresholds for "good" and "poor" being 70% and 90% are ideal is something i opened up for debate and nobody seemed to contest the idea so until such time i think it seems a good set of thresholds.
It's a great deal, but also a sign of struggling to get buts in seats. Though I'm glad they're doing something like that to the season ticket holders rather then just giving them away to people who will never come out again (for selfish reasons).
So? You are comparingt 5 to six teams with the vast majority of teams? Never said that. But the fact that the vast majority of teams couldn't mathematically reach that number demonstrates the faulty assumptions you make when producing this number. Is it an improvement though? Is it it meaningless garbage? If most venues could not possibly exceed the +33% number then what is its importance. How does it accurately reflect what is good or bad? Presuming that the median attendance figure in the NFL is 67,000, and presuming the only truly good attendance are those 33% better than that median, then what percentage of NFL games are truly good? Using the same metric that you are judging as good gauge for MLS attendance, then what does it mean that less than 5% of NFL games reached that threshold? If this stat is an improvement on anything, then it should apply to every league in the US. But it really doesn't say anything because there is an absolute limit to how good this number could ever be. I mean, what if median MLS attendance went up to 21,000? Then your +33% number would be 28,000. That would mean that sold out games at HDC could never reach that number. Who cares if a game draws 70,000 in the NFL? That's only 3,000 more than the median. It's not a significant achievement. There's a point where there can be no real improvement. You can get a fluctuation here or there, but that's it. The +33% number makes no sense in light of that. I am not talking about an individual team. I am talking about the FACT that the overwhelming vast majority of MLS games are in venues that couldn't possibly accommodate your +33% figure. It's NOT an improvement. It would only be mathematically accurate if it were mathematically relevant to most venues. It is not.
what good is the 10K/20K metric for NFL? oh wait it isn't because these metrics aren't for the NFL they are for MLS a point you seem to have missed. i did not invent the 10K/20K metric ... it was invented years ago by other people to add more to attendance analysis than average and median ... it was an attempt to measure exceptional attendance games ... 20K and 10K made sense because the median at that time was 15K so those numbers reflected a +/- 5K ... a healthy amount above and below the median which made sense. today the league median is 18K so 10K/20K don't even represent the same thing today as they did years ago ... it now represents +2K/-8K which is essentially nonsense. as for your argument that 12k and 24K (roughly) can't be achieved by some teams is totally irrelevant. the total data set ... all 323 in total, is what we are assessing here not any one individual team or game. some can and will fall in the +33% category this year and some won't ... some will fall into the -33% category this year and some what ... what teams they come from and why they did or did not fall into any particular category is irrelevant because the same circumstances (some stadiums not having 24K capacity; some teams sucking arse at attendance and having no fans or any number of other reasons) that apply to this season's data set applied equally to every season's data set more or less and this metric (both the 10K/20K and the improved +/-33%) are solely meant to comparatively assess one season versus another and not be viewed in a stand alone vacuum. and 2012 doesn't have any more or less games that could possibly go above the upper metric than 2011 or 2010 or any other season ... and the truth of the matter is the capacity of a stadium is down to the team ... so if a team builds a 18K stadium they have CHOSEN to limit their upper attendance limit and that is something that statistically they should be held responsible for not given a statistical "pass" or "fudge". such a team's attendance can never be as "good" as Seattle's and that is their choice. in the end if you don't like that metric don't pay attention to it. as i said i am only including it because it is a bit better than the 10K/20K while being sort of similar and somebody asked that i keep including it ... truth is the %CAP 70%/90% is far better at assessing "good" and "bad" attendances which is why i proposed it, monitor it and report it here.