just wondered, who the best supported club in usa? and whats the home game average and best gate figure?
good job prenn-- you do know about things other than island football! the best supported club last season by attendance was Colorado, with about a 20,600 average. The league average was just shy of 16k. But over the years, the team with the best attendance has been Los Angeles. Both those teams obviously have great fans, but I think a number of MLS supporters would point to other teams as having the best support and say that the averages are misleading.
no comparison at all-- really apples and oranges. American football plays much fewer games-- only 8 a year, usually in larger stadiums. I have no idea what the NFL averages, but I'm certain it's in excess of 60k. So it's much more popular than soccer, but a few MLS matches will draw over 60k (generally for special events).
Note, that's 8 regular season home games. There are 16 regular season games and most teams also play 3 preseason games. A few teams play postseason games as well, but they're single elimination unlike most other sports in the US, so they don't count for much. Here's a link to a chart of the NFL's complete regular season attendance for the most recent season: http://www.canoe.ca/StatsFBP/BC-FBP-STAT-NFLATTEND-R.html Note that the cardinals are the only team with attendance below 50 thousand per home game. This is not a stadium limitation. Their current stadium capacity is in the 70k range, and they're breaking ground on a new stadium soon. Note, I agree that it is apples and oranges. The NFL easily averages head and shoulders above any other sporting league on the planet, AFAIK. They're the model of a super successful league, with average salaries being over a million dollars a year. Teams rake in the dough hand over fist, and there are more than enough cities willing to take a moving NFL franchise, so they can capitalize on the popularity of their sport to get free stadiums and tax breaks from cities.
Truer words were never spoke. Even a pathetic franchise like the Cardinals, which only sellout their current stadium when the Cowboys are in town, can blackmail the local cities into competing to keep them in town. Contrast that with the MLS, where most teams have unfavorable lease deals with huge American football stadiums. Night and day. Imagine the laughter if some MLS team threatened to move unless the city built new roads, built parking lots, gave tax breaks, raised taxes, or otherwise financially assisted the team. No offense to Cardinals fans meant, by the way. My wife grew up in Tempe and I've been to Cards games. Tickets always available
Here is more information then you could ever wanted to know about MLS attendance... http://www.kenn.com/soccer/mls/index.html
But 2 huge events can and will probably be held in the near future at this new stadium, Super Bowl and the Final Four. Super Bowl brings in a ridiculous amount of money to a community. San Diego was expecting over $200 million poured into their area during Super Bowl week, Atlanta had something like $225 million in 2000. Also, I believe the Fiesta Bowl will be moved there from ASU. BTW, did the Bidwell's put any money into this stadium, or is at all the tax payers money? I didn't know what the pro arguments were for this stadium during the election, but I'm sure the Super Bowl was a big selling point.
Here's the site to go to for leauge attendance figures. http://www.worldfootballrankings.com And this is the particular page you want http://www.worldfootballrankings.com/worldfootball2001/Top75Leagues2001.html
As far as I can tell, the team is required to put up money to buy the parcel of land, but the city/county/region/whatever is going to float the 355 million in bonds to build the stadium.
One of the things that Americans probably implicitly understand but non-Americans might not is that as an outdoor, large-field, many-player team sport, soccer will inevitably be compared to American football in the collective American consciousness. This is particularly so when most MLS teams play in American football stadiums. This is why an average leaguewide attendance of nearly 16,000, which in some countries would be quite respectable even where soccer is the top sport, is not considered particularly impressive by most sports fans here in the USA. Comparing attendances understates the dominance of American football in terms of popularity, but at least it gives you a starting point. In the National (American) Football League, the average attendance is heavily influenced by the fact that many (almost all, actually, except in a few oddball cases like the Arizona Cardinals) of the games are sold out. They'd draw even more if the stadiums could hold more people. And of course the tickets are much, much more expensive. In addition to the professional American football league, collegiate football also draws huge interest. A few big-time college teams have stadiums seating around 100,000 fans, and sell every seat. And there are lots more college teams than professional ones. In soccer, on the other hand, MLS (and the national team) is pretty much all there is. There are lower divisions and college teams, but their followings are negligible. The women's national team draws some interest, and the women's league does better than college or lower division play, but MLS is pretty much the only regularly-scheduled game in town.
We need to do better! We seem like a mouse to an Elephant. But I guess things will probably get better in the future especially if some of the kids latch onto MLS. But the NFL is like an ant compared to soccer in the world. I certainly wouldn't swap places with the NFL and trade our massive presence in most countries.
According to this, MLS ranks #14 in the world for top soccer leagues at 14k average attendance. All other things being equal, if we were to raise that to 17k we'd be the #8 league in the world based upon average attendance. Given MLS' growth the past few years, that seems quite attainable in only a few more years. Another thing I noticed, was that Mexico has the fourth biggest league in the world based upon average attendance, ahead of such notables as the Spanish La Liga, the French La Championnat, the Dutch Eredivise, the Scottish Premier League, and all of the great leagues in South America. The Mexican MFL only averages 26.4k, which I think is reachable for MLS over the next 8-10 years, even considering moderate growth. Attendances, which we all place so much emphasis on, is not the be-all end-all. We're actually doing well in attendance. Sure it would help a lot to have 10% growth each year for the next 3 years, but it's not neccesary. Eventually soccer in the US will reach a critical mass. When it does, the Neilsen ratings will go up to the point where it is a legitimate marketing prospect. At that time, it will not matter whether MLS is a "time buy" or gets a paid contract to show it's games. Even a time buy would make the league a good chunk of money. In this scenario, MLS would be able to sell advertisement significantly above the price of the time buy. Also, itis exposure would attract more corporate investors to MLS. Additionally, the nationwide primary network exposure of the sport and league will attract fans in a large way. This has been the blueprint for most major sports in the US. Even if we discount the initial TV mover--the NFL--we see a lot of similarities. The attendances of the NHL and NBA were below our current attendances when they made their big jumps to reach critical mass. But, the NBA had two factors wieghing in their favor. 1) Stars that were already known from the well received college game, and 2) A truly national footprint to expose the game to more major TV markets to attract advertisers. While the first advantage is highly unlikely to happen for MLS, the second is imperative. Cities like Philadelphia, Houston, Seattle, and Tampa/Orlando are vital locations in this regard. MLS needs 20+ teams in top 30 markets. Right now KC and Columbus are outside of the top markets, so that means the league needs to expand another 12 teams--more than double--to attain the neccesary footprint. While places like Toronto, Rochester or Oklahoma City may make sense from a short term perspective, they do not solve the problem needed to create critical mass. Attendance is important because of the revenues it produces--considering the majority of MLS teams make the vast majority of their revenues from gate receipts--and also because or the US sports conciousness. If MLS averaged 35k instead of 15k, the media coverage from TV, newspaper, radio and other sources would be staggering. But where we're at now is pretty good, and if it continues to rise 5% a year the league will be just fine. Once the league has a history of financial stability and a 3-5 year trend of financial growth, many more investors will step up to the plate. In the end, it's less about attendance and more about continued growth. -Tron
BTW: Those figures are for 2001. The league went up a bit last year. MLS should be ranked higher when he posts 2002.
Last year MLS averaged: 15,822 And here are the averages for the top european leagues and second divison from the world stadium site. So MLS is doing considerably less then first divison soccer in Europe and considerably better then a European second division soccer. Which is pretty good for a 7 year old league. I was also shocked that MLS attendence is better then the Dutch attendence considering how well their national team usually does and the popularity. Maybe by 2010 MLS can rivil the French and Spanish in attendence.
Thanks to TomEaton... ...for a very well thought-out post. I like the concept of Critical Mass. But it's not just average attendance. It could also be attained by reaching, maybe, 10 SSS's for the league or perhaps when the league reaches 20 teams. The one thing that seems to be ignored when talking about current MLS growth is that we are in a recession. Most sports leagues in the US have flatlined the last couple of years. To have real growth in this economic environment is really quite amazing. Sure the MFL has 26,000 fans per game but I've always been curious about how this translates into money. It's entirely possible that 15,000 MLS fans might generate more revenue than 26,000 Mexican fans.
Probably 15K fans at an MLS game do generate more revenue than 26K at a Mexican league game, particularly when you take the strength of currency into account. HOWEVER, revenue from fans in the stands is sort of icing on the cake when big TV money is involved. And here there is no comparison, not because of the size of the crowds but because of the general interest in the population (which translates into ratings and advertising revenue). Like the NFL, for Mexican League team the fans in the stands are sort of wallpaper and a cast of extras designed to provide color for the viewers. For MLS, fans in the stands are THE cash cow. Big difference.
Soccer has another disadvantage beside popularity in the US. It does not work well with television advertising. American Football is perfect for this. All other sports, Baseball, Hockey, and Basketball, can accomodate TV ads much better than soccer. Put yourself in an advertisers shoes. During a short break with maybe one or two ads (during stoppages of play, between innings, timeouts, etc.) you would think more people would stay and see you ad. But with soccer, we know how long halftime lasts, so it's more likely people will not sit and watch 20-straight TV commercials. I don't know how many of you can remember the 'old' days (maybe 10+ years ago.) They used to show commercials DURING the game. Sometimes you would come back, and you would be told 'oh, team so-and-so scored a goal. It was great." Talk about infuriating. I really respect ABC and ESPN showing games in their entirety, without commercials or tape delay. Also, try to imagine games run like the NHL, where the ref hold the puck/ball until the end-of-commercial signal, stopping the clock during that time for throw-ins, substitutions, or free kicks. How would you like the MLS to do something like that? I think this says good things about the game itself, but there is a basic incompatibility with the commercial needs of advertisers. I, for one, don't care if soccer never gets as big as the other sports. As long as it stays in business and I can see some games, I'll be happy. But for this to happen, MLS needs some profit, and for that to happen, MSL will need someone to buy ad time. It won't be easy.
Take away Ajax, PSV and Feyenoord and just about every MLS team would outdraw the other Eredivision teams. Their overall average attendance is very much skewed by their big three. The same is true (to a lesser extent) with France and Spain. Even in La Liga, some of the lower end teams average under 10,000 fans per season. At the same time, we should remember that our league only has 10 teams. So the overall attendance in all of the first (and most of the second) division leagues far outpaces the MLS (the SPL being the exception).
Best supported club does not have to mean highest attendance... I would have to say that honor goes to the Rochester Rhinoes of the A-League. Year after year they avergae 10,000+ per season playing in a 10,840 seater baseball stadium with 2,000 to 3,000 temporary bleacher seats. They have quite a track record as seen below: 1996 -->9,991 1997 -->10,677 1998 -->11,499 1999 -->11,551 2000 -->11,628 2001 -->10,780 2002 -->10,008 Source: http://www.kenn.com/soccer/aleague.html Just wait till they get their new stadium.
I think SSS stadiums will cause attendance to go up because of the newness factor, higher demand for tickets, and a much better place to watch the game. The key would be to keep attendance up once the newness of the stadium wears off. Heck, get the Metros close to public transportation and their attendance would go up even with Nick in charge.
In terms of fan attendance baseball is probably actually the king of attendance of all sports and all leagues. 70k fans sounds better than it is when you consider at just 8 home games, but baseball teams are able to sustain crowds of 25k+ on average over over 81 home games. The Mariners managed to draw 3.5 million fans last season, which is mind boggling. An MLS team would have to draw over 50k a game in order to match the lowly Expos.
You have to remember that although Holland has a population of about 15m, once you get beyond the big cities you have teams playing out of towns that really aren't that big. Someone like AZ Alkmaar may only get 8000 people watching them play in Holland's top division, but that works out at nearly 10% of the town's population. Scotland is similar. Crowds may be numerically poor, but when you consider that many clubs in the SPL play in towns with less than 50,000 people it's easy to see why they can't pull in 15,000 every week.