MLS Attendance on the Rise
Or, if one were to be cruel, I could have called this post: After Twelve Years, MLS Almost Back Where It Started.
The raw numbers, after 96.4% of the season, thanks to Andy_B at Bigsoccer:
MLS Average Attendance after 96.4% of the games played.
1996 17,306
1997 14,536
1998 14,231
1999 14,333
2000 13,619
2001 14,941
2002 15,653
2003 14,882
2004 15,581
2005 14,978
2006 15,354
2007 16,629
MLS Median Attendance after 96.4% of the games played.
1996 14,906
1997 12,733
1998 11,543
1999 12,879
2000 12,369
2001 13,376
2002 14,065
2003 13,561
2004 13,271
2005 12,546
2006 13,834
2007 15,046
% of games Under 10,000 after 96.4% played
1996 22.7%
1997 25.3%
1998 27.0%
1999 31.9%
2000 35.7%
2001 26.3%
2002 17.8%
2003 23.4%
2004 25.5%
2005 28.1%
2006 19.5%
2007 8.5%
That last number is pretty striking, isn’t it? Sure, it’d be nice if it was 0%, but a big stride nonetheless. Next season, with (hopefully) full seasons of Blanco, Beckham and one is guessing a couple of other top new stars, further progress is surely likely. If MLS can continue to expand each season (San Jose joins next year) and increase its average attendance year-on-year until we reach say eighteen clubs, we’d have a very solid league stateside. It would mean less depressing sights such as this:
Globally, the figure of 16,629 would put the U.S. behind only the following countries in terms of top-flight average attendance: Germany, England, Spain, France, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Argentina.
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Thomas Dunmore
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Trackbacks
- Daily Dose 10.19.07 - World Football - The Offside - Soccer News and Opinion from leagues around the world
- This is American Soccer » Blog Archive » Barometer: Playoff Push Edition
- Pitch Invasion · When Success Doesn't Pay in America: MLS Attendance
- This Is American Soccer, US Soccer, MNT, WNT, and MLS » Blog Archive » the barometer
Honest question: Why is Brazil’s average attendance so low? Is it because so many of the stars on Brazil’s national team play in Europe? Even the A-League gets better attendance than the Brasileirão.
It’s not just the stars in Europe, it’s hundreds of the most talented players: more Brazilians play in the Champions League than any other nationality. There are also big financial issues holding back the clubs, see this blog for more.
But I’m sure someone more knowledgeable could help out further.
Do we have any figures for second-flight football? I know the rest of Europe is much less interested in this but I’m fairly certain England’s second tier, The Championship, is also better attended…
The move to ’soccer’-specific grounds has to be a good thing. Photos of the Red Bulls at home would be less depressing in a stadium which is actually a sensible size for them, after all. And such photos of stadia looking fuller (even if it’s due to a smaller ground rather than more fans in it) would only encourage people alone…
England, and I think also Germany, has higher second-tier attendance than every other country’s top-tier excepting Spain, France, Italy and Japan. Which is really pretty remarkable.
If you look at the percentage figures, 8.5% means only 15 out of 180 MLS games drew fewer than 10,000 fans (compared to 69 out of 192 in 2000), and all can be accounted for among four home squads(RBNY, KC, Dallas, and Chivas–ironically, all playoff teams). By comparison, the LA Galaxy, Toronto FC, and DC united played in a combined 45 games or so that drew more than 20,000 fans.
There is a useful collection of German attendance figures down to the regional third division at http://www.abseits-soccer.com/attendance.html.
The general trend is positive, though the figure can fluctuate considerably due to the temporary presence of “big” clubs in the lower league. That phenomenon is more or less universal (at least in leagues where “big” clubs can be relegated), and was especially apparent in Italy last year, when three of the ten most well-supported teams in the country (Juventus, Napoli and Genoa) were all in Serie B. The promotion of that entire trio has meant that this year’s average for B is down significantly, and it isn’t a coincidence that the league is still operating without a television contract.
Lots of useful statistics on Italian attendances here: http://digilander.libero.it/stadiapostcardsdgl/attendance.htm
overall attendance isn’t really that useful. how about the same chart. but show it by indvidual club over the last say 5 to ten years. Seattle alone will raise the average cause they are adding 30k fans per game. It’s clear that that is a positive direction but it’s one season. What’s more informative is information like how much more does san jose, chivas, Toronto, galaxy, kc, and champion columbus have then the last five years.
another major barometer that would be useful is what are the average tv ratings for weekday espn games over the last few years and average ratings for weekend espn games. they need to be seperate because there is almost always a higner audience on weekends. They’ve been averaging around 250k veiwers weekdays. Is are those weekday tv ratings trending up or down?
@ Dave’s Football Blog
my understanding is Brazil’s attendance numbers are a product of several things. Some stadiums are flat old, dangerous and a tad to violent. Another thing i’ve heard is that there is lot’s of corruption in Brazilian football so that doesn’t exactly help when it comes to changing the behavior in the stands in the same way many ultras have lots of power in Italian and spanish clubs. The corruption from my understanding also forces mismanaged clubs to have to sell players to stay afloat. I know Bralian fans don’t like it but they also export tons of talent unlike the U.S. which helps their league. Clearly they are developing a lot of world class potential talent. The U.S. has nothing close to that kind of pipeline. They make footballers like the U.S. makes Basketball players. It’s never ending. I do believe there are also some clubs that aren’t exactly in rich cities either so the fans aren’t exactly rolling in dough to buy tons of tickets.