NYC fans complaining about $20 beers and $50 parking fees at Citi Field. Hopefully Etihad Park will be better.
Those prices are somewhat standard for downtown stadiums these days unfortunately. Galaxy are not in downtown so they are a bargain. $15 beers and $30 parking.
You filled it! 💙The upper bowl is now open for our first MLS home match after the World Cup against LAFC. 🏟️Thank you for the incredible energy and support! #VWFC | https://t.co/4WaEyLsbqe pic.twitter.com/K5uNRN5IUT— Vancouver Whitecaps FC (@WhitecapsFC) May 7, 2026
I haven't been following this thread closely for the last several years (probably since pre-pandemic). How often has Vancouver opened the upper bowl?
Once during the regular season, for the game Messi didn't show up to I believe. Edited, the record MLS attendance before 2023 was 28,837, which I think is the capacity of the lower tier. In 2023 the got just over 30,000 for the playoff game against LAFC. Since then they've cracked 30,000 a few times, most notably in the build up the Messi game
Big crowd at BMO today to see Messi and friends: This is what a nearly sold-out BMO Field looks like, with more than 45,000 fans expected in attendance today for TFC vs. Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami.A big test for the new temporary seating setup as the World Cup in Toronto quickly approaches. Dress rehearsal.#TFCLive #MLS pic.twitter.com/v0s17wz6Jz— Jacob Pacheco (@JacobPacheco6) May 9, 2026
Previous BMO field record for an MLS game was 36,045. MLS Cup 2016. They used temporary seating for the Grey Cup but did not use the temporary seating for the NHL Centennial Classic. What a couple of weeks for Toronto sports it was - Grey Cup, MLS Cup, Centennial Classic and all this just a year after hosting the Pan American games.
MLS Attendances for Saturday, May 9, 2026 Toronto (vs. Miami) 44,828 Chicago (vs. New York Red Bulls) 23,647 Montreal (vs. Orlando) 14,044 New England (vs. Philadelphia) 18,561 Charlotte (vs. Cincinnati) 26,252 Atlanta (vs. Los Angeles Galaxy) 40,392 Dallas (vs. Real Salt Lake) 11,004 Nashville (vs. DC United) 28,384 Colorado (vs. St. Louis) 16,028 San Jose (vs. Vancouver) 18,000 Portland (vs. Kansas City) 22,384 Seattle (vs. San Diego) 31,528 TOTAL ATTENDANCE: 295,052 AVERAGE: 24,588 (12 Matches) Coming up Sunday: Columbus at New York City Austin at Minnesota Houston at Los Angeles FC
Since I have been vocal about the way the Messi game was handled, its only fair for me to point out the Rapids game last night was the first home (league) match post-Messi. Their attendance was up about 1K from the prior home (league) match at the Dick, up about 1K from the same weekend last year, and up about 1K from the St. Louis game last year (which was also in May, just a week or two later). Is 1K more after 1 game enough to prove anything? Probably not, but it is a data point that does not support my argument.
This data point proves my argument, if it improves even by one is positive but 1k is exelent, if that doesn’t make you happy nothing will.
That's a very simplistic view on this situation. But then that's about all you've ever provided for an argument. Taking this to the extreme if they spent an extra $250K to host the game at Empower and the next result was an increased average attendance of 1 that would clearly not be a success. You could literally pay somebody $5K cash and get that same increase for much less.
Just with the 75k plus in attendance for the Messi game they paid the 250k and had a good profit, everything after that is extra.