For those that were blaming one time slot over another (mainly b/c of last season's 4pm start times)….I thought I'd offer the following quick attendance analysis. I've arranged them by best start time using number from the past 2 seasons in the new digs. I've also culled only those matches that were "stand-alone" revs games on sat or sun only. here's the breakdown. Time: [No. games] (avg attend) Hi/Lo 7:00 pm: [1] (15,336) 15,336/- 7:30 pm: [4] (15,225) 20,258/9747 4:00 pm: [7] (14,368) 17,138/11,278 6:00 pm: [5] (11,135) 15,839/8,594 I did not include the opening day of the stadium '02 (22,006) because of the pomp and circumstance and the fact that it was clearly "abnormal" given the previous declining opening day attendances. here's the numbers for stand-alone wed/thurs matches w/th: [5] (11,033) 14,543/7,701 clearly there's lots of factors (like holiday weekends, summer weekends, weather, or whatever) that can affect the numbers…however, I think its relatively clear that the 4 pm start times were not a huge deal (esp given the hi numbers and relatively low "swing" in the hi/lo for that time slot). oh, and the 20, 258 listed for the 7:30 slot"hi" was for closing day in the 2002 season. take that away ('03's was 12,492) and the next "hi" was 15,748…and the average for 7/7:30 slots become 13,994….that's LOWER than the 4pm time slot. take any of this however you'd like
geez....thought this would've at least ruffled the feathers of some of those staunch and passionate anti-4pm people. i guess the facts are facts. the 6pm time slot seems to be the worst of the options....clearly, not the 4. therefore, the revs may have sacrificed some national exposure on "soccer saturdays" in order to put 1,000 more people in the seats. not sure if i have any real problem with this. i will amend the comment about taking away the '02 reg season home ender. its really not a statistical anomoly. the 12,492 '03 ender was however. typically, its the "use it or lose it" game for all those with flex tix. anyway, the home closer stats listed below. 2003: 12,492 2002: 20,215 2001: no real closer...9/11 2000: 20,419 1999: 21,335 1998: 24,763 1997: 36,273 1996: 38,633 however, as i was told by the revs at some point...many of the past year's attend figures are somewhat misleading b/c of all the comp/corp tix that were floated out there. not really the norm any longer.
I think Magpie had looked at those numbers in the past. The problem is that with just looking at one season you're dealing with a very small sample size. I'd encourage yuo to go back and look at some of the other years to see if you come up with the same kind of results. Unfortunately there are a lot of different factors when it probably comes to attendance. You've tried to eliminate some of the things which would be obvious outlyers but I think this kind of analysis might be a little over-simplistic.
The 4:00 game times were "forced" on the Rev's by Espn. There was a lot of demand for the team based upon the previous year's appearance in the MLS Cup. None of the teams in the league wanted a 4:00 time slot, too tough for the attendance issue. But, the league needs TV exposure. It's a double edged sword.
maxim, the numbers are for the 2 seasons that they've been in the new stadium. it could make some sense to look further back....however, you'd have to compare those numbers against themselves and not the past 2 years b/c the revs have admitted that the figures over the past 2 years are "realistic attendance figures" compared to past year (uh, probably not unlike the s.j. years eh?). another reason that you can't compare past 2 seasons to fox. stad. years is the theory that all of the associated costs (parking, concessions, etc) of going to matches nowadays may be detering people from coming back after being there once or twice. anyway, the real point here (and one mr. sangster seems not to fully get) is that 4pm starts do show a slight dip compared to the 7/7:30....BUT,the major dip came with the 6pm starts. for whatever reason though...people incorrectly kept jumping down the throat of the 4pm start. could just be the small sample of people going to the games that frequent these boards. maybe the majority of people here, that had an opinion, were affected by the 4's more adversely. and oversimplistic? well, attendance = money. regardless of what the soccer dad's on the bds are saying, put those 6pm games from last season at 4 and i guarantee you they make more money than they did...and only slightly more at 7/7:30....if i'm a business owner...uh, i look at it just about as simply as that. and again, how about this for plain and simple: take away the bloated cmgi grand opening day and the "use it or lose it" closing reg season game and the remainder of the '02 season dips under 14k (as i stated above) for the 7+pm starts....and this during a year when the "curiosity factor" was supposedly driving people out to see the "premiere sports facility" in the u.s. i'm just about willing to guarantee that attendance figures take a slight hit this year for rev stand-alone matches and barely crack the 15k mark for the 7/7:30 starts overall. wouldn't totally be shocked if they hover around the 14.5 mark. plain and simple....people can debate over the start times to maximize attendance...but, as clearly proven, winning does not guarantee more people will come to see this team and this sport. there are other forces at work and this organization won't realize this any more this year than they did during the previous 2 years at gillette.
My opinions on the various start times were entirely a function of whether they worked for me. A lot of people who reported not liking the 4pm starts also stated that more frequent time conflicts were behind their feelings. I am inclined to dismiss all the arguments about which start times will generate the highest attendance because I've yet to see a persuasive description of kick-off times as a determinant of attendance compared to all the other issues that play in. For example, 6pm kick-offs were extremely rare until 2003, so whatever effect they had is difficult to pick out from all the other reasons why the Revs' attendance was what it was.