MLS Attendance stats week 17

The Becks parade continues to rage on in the Eastern conference, bringing numbers much higher than in the beginning of the season. Although the New York-LA game may not have been as high in attendance as it was last year, it was large enough to bring NYRB's season average above that of last year's (see the 07-08 plot difference). Because I know a lot of you out there in bigsoccerland like to see other aspects of statistics, I'm including median plots for the east and the west in high definition (just click for full page). Note that NY's median is still higher than 15,000 even though they had two games below 10,000 this season. Their relative attendance currently sits at 69%, much better than NE, RSL, CHV, DAL.

New England's meager attendance shows its ugly face in the median analysis (KC not included do to a smaller stadium). Even so, NE's attendance is not much differend than it was a year ago for the entire season (see difference plot). I've also read that KC's game with LA will be held at Arrowhead. This should put another inflationary figure into the Eastern conference and effectively raise KC's average to make it look more like San Jose's out west (>120% relative attendance). Therein lies the Achilles heel of relative analysis and this has prompted me to come up with a relative median that I will introduce in the coming weeks. Such a number will, hopefully, do away with the inflationary effects of switching venues. This isn't the same problem with DC, NE or NY since their inherent MLS capacity is already twice that of SJ and KC.
Just wanted to remind everyone and to alert new visitors to the site: all numbers are based on official public MLS numbers and all plots are on the right column.

MLS Attendance stats week 15

Enter DCU. Attendance wise, that is. As DCU fans already know, RFK usually attracts a good crowd. Beckham coming to town last week, coupled with Euro hype drew out a good crowd of 35,979. That was enough to catapult DC to above 20,000 for attendance average, thus surpassing TFC. In relative terms, however, TFC still reigns supreme in the East. Per the request of a BigSoccer member, I decided to look at the average attendance vs relative attendance per team. Today, due to time constraints, I've only done it for the East.
Also, for the sake of completeness, here's the official "MLS capacity" for each of the stadiums:
DC: 24,500
KC: 10,385
NE: 20,000
CLB: 22,500
TFC: 20,000
CHI: 20,000
NYRB: 25,576
Also keep in mind that some of these stadiums (RFK, Giants, Gillette) can hold a lot more in their actual NFL capacity. BMO field is listed at 20,000 but the stadium holds another three to five hundred more seats if necessary. Same goes for some of the other SS stadiums in the league, i.e. Dallas, etc.

*Week 15 does not include 3 games from week 16. They will be posted next week. This is to avoid confusion when looking at the figures so that all teams are well represented.

MLS Attendance stats week 13

Back to reality. No inflammatory Brazils or Becks coming to town to attract the casual viewer and temporarily shift the attendance figures. You'll note that week 13 is a more normal week with attendance averaging just above 15K. I've read a couple of threads over at bigsoccer.com that speak of the "unfortunate stadium situation" with San Jose and Kansas City. I both agree and disagree, for even though the smaller venues will make general attendance figures lower, the atmosphere and the feeling of a full house is much better at Buck Shaw and CAB than a cavernous Crew Stadium or Pizza Hut Park, which currently have the lowest averages in league and usually with empty seats --and those are soccer specific venues. I think a lot of us out there are being a little shortsighted and again I argue that we should look at the relative terms of attendance. Smaller cities will have smaller venues but will fill up the stadiums nonetheless. It's more of a cup is half full sort of idea. Just look at the numbers and plots I provide... doesn't it ring more than one bell when we see extremely small (50%) turnouts while other teams exceed their own MLS capacity (SJ, FCD) for visits from the DPs (right now only Becks and Blanco count for obvious reasons)?
I've also seen a lot of information regarding Philly and Seattle potentially increasing the total turnout numbers. There's been back-and-forth animosity between TFC followers and those that oppose having Canadian teams in the league and I must admit I find this saddening. I would love to see more Canadian teams in the league. I would put both Vancouver and Montreal and have the remaining two spots for a 20 team league come from places such as New York, Miami, Atlanta or St. Louis. But why Canada? More exposure, more experience, more money, that's why. Exposure for the game in North America, experience for a whole new generation of players that will grow up always having a soccer league and always aspiring to be a part of it. This will elevate the level of play in CONCACAF for sure.
But back to the stats. I'm including a new piece below of the relative attendance for all games in which Becks and crew have played. Clearly Becks overflows stadiums and Blanco fills them up to more than 80% as well. Gallardo enjoys the faithful DC followers while Lopez regularly plays at the smaller CAB venue in KC, thus filling the stadium. This may not represent much unless we look at Angel. I might venture to say that if both Gallardo and Lopez played for NYRB then their numbers would be closer to Angel's.

UPDATE: MLS Attendance stats week 11

Stolen idea from the folks at bigsoccer.com that I thought merited a new plot. Below is the difference between last year and this year's attendance (up to week 12, which includes NE's Brazil-inflated game). I'll update as it comes along and may end up putting it on the column to the right. It's a nice view of the change incurred by the influx of DP players and their relative effect on attendance.