Interesting...looks like DC United might really be the biggest draw in town. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41812-2003Dec6.html
Except that as far as I can tell they do the same thing. Somehow, magically, 7000 people in the seats shows up at 15,459 in the box score.
also, i once saw all the ticket checkers sitting there spinning the turnstyles with their hands. i saw this happen probably for a full 2 minutes right at about the 35th minute during the crew match, you know, the one where the announced was 19k. i used to think that they got their attendance from seats sold, guess not.
It's amazing that the run an article about the Wizards and not the Mystics. The Mystics are the biggest culprit, and they have the nerve to hang "attendance champion" banners. I think EdTheRed is forgetting the Skins and the Terps if he believes DCU might be the biggest draw.
I wasn't forgetting about the Skins and the Terps...they're not "in town," they're in the suburbs. This has been hashed out elsewhere on BigSoccer before, but DC United counts "paid attendance," so if you have season tickets and don't show up, you're still counted as having attended. From a bottom-line point of view, you might as well have attended. I believe that if you turn in unused tickets to a game later in the season, your exchanged tickets are not counted towards paid attendance. What this means is that the last couple of home matches often have higher actual attendance than they do paid attendance. What DC United doesn't do is give away massive numbers of tickets to fill empty parts of the stands.
The difference is that Abe Polin owns MCI Center, so when someone shows up with a Freebie ticket, that's automatically (in my case anyway) two $6 beers, a $4 Nacho, and probably third beer they would have otherwise not sold. If United gives a freebie what do they get? Nothing.
I think the Caps double-count those fans who pay for an early season game, but go to a late season game. Does this mean we are the only pro team that doesn't cheat? (Although the Redskins may not inflate attendance, they certainly consider a partially-sold stadium to be a sellout.)
I wonder how pissed the Wizard's season ticket holders are that the same seat two sections over is being heavily discounted or given away when they've paid full price.
All these leagues/teams inflate their attendance figures via one method or another...during the ABC telecast they claimed the MLS Cup game at Home Depot was sold out but there were clearly empty seats.
I was told by an employee w/ DCU that the Stadium Authority charges them $4 for every person comes in. If that is so, these employees were bumping up the price on DCU.
This is actually a very good point. DC United only gets money from tickets, so it doesn't make sense to give them away just to boost attendance figures. What does make sense is to have specials for younger fans. If they go when they're 12-17, they'll go when they're older. At least that's the way it worked for me and my friends.
That and the fact that if they go before they're around 16 most of the time they're going with their parents.
Season ticket holders don't pay full price. My season tickets cost $15 per game but have a face value of $50 (in the lower part of Section 416, one section off of the center section in the upper deck). That's a very fair price (I wouldn't go to many at $50, that's for sure) and buying the season ticket gets me a much better seat than what they're giving away. If they give away some upper corner seats to youth groups or non-profits, that doesn't bother me.