Becks and his final move

It's true. MLS will never be the same because of Beckham. Now comes word that Becks will be splitting time between AC Milan and the LA Galaxy in a time-share type deal that includes a friendly between the two teams (that part I had predicted long ago). I think this isn't that bad a deal for either team(s) or player. Clearly, Beckham wants out of MLS so that he has a chance at being with England for 2010. Clearly this would not have been the case if his form had not faltered in 2007. Clearly, Steve McClaren's decision to part ways with the talented midfielder when he took the England manager position in 2006 meant a possible early retirement from international duty.



And yet, through it all, it seems that MLS and the US actually revived the former England captain's career (this is something I read in ESPN magazine of all places). He regained a spot in the England squad after McClaren's results in Euro qualifying started to fall apart. Capello always had a soft spot for Becks (much like Eriksson) and he decided to keep "Golden Balls" around in what I must admit is increasingly looking like an overage England national team. Beckham drew millions of fans, sold millions of jerseys (myself included), drew media attention to the league, opened the door for Blanco/Angel/Ljungberg/Lopez/Schellotto, and finally drew attention from another major team and league--AC Milan of Italy's Serie A. Beckham became only the fifth Englishman to win 100 caps when Capello recalled him to the England squad by Capello for the friendly against France on 26 March 2008.

S0 Beckham will now play the remainder of the 2009 Italy season with Milan (ending in June) and will return for the Galaxy beggining July 15th when the transfer window opens. A return to Milan on a free transfer in the winter 2010 window is already slated to occur. Let it be known that the man funded part of the deal and that half of his MLS salary $200K will not go against the Galaxy for the season, thus leaving space for the LA team to play around with their roster for the first half of the upcoming MLS season. I leave you with two plots from 2008 attendance analysis highlighting the man's effect on league numbers:

plot a) Last season's designated players in relative attendance terms averaged for the entire season:


Plot b) A comparison of actual attendance numbers with MLS's other great designated player, Blanco:

MLS Attendance stats final week 2008

Hello, everyone. Final week was last week. Sorry it took me a little bit but it's been a busy month for me. Things should be easier from now on and other random statistics will be computed to show different trends. This year was about equal to last year (check out the difference plot, particularly the total). It was lower by about 97 seats or about 0.52%. Meaningless in statistical terms. Looking at the distribution for total attendance in pie chart format we see that DC and TFC share the majority of percentage (both with 17%), with Chicago (15%) and New England (15%) also showing respectable numbers. It's unfortunate that Columbus is lower (13%) given their sensational season.
Out west we see an obvious winner in the Galaxy (22%) due to the Beckham crowds. A modest Houston comes in second (15%) while RSL and a surprising Chivas (14%) are next in the pecking order. FCD is dissapointing again at 11%, lower than San Jose--their attendance numbers are inflated by games at the McAfee Colisseum. Elswhere, in relative attendance terms it seems that stadiums, on any given week, were about 70-80% full in the east. That's not a bad number compared to previous years. The west would be slightly lower at 60-70% on weekly basis, their numbers enhanced by LAG.

MLS Attendance stats week 28

Back again after a brief respite. Probably will join you next week as the season winds down. There's only 3 more weeks of play after this week. I'm including the mean vs media plot to show some of the more recent happenings in league attendance. DCU was boosted by its last game at home, and they can forget about any further play until next season unless something miraculous happens. No more DP (Gallardo) this season. The guy played okay so no fuss with him, people. He wasn't a complete mess like Denilson. More important is my current focus on Dallas.

The team has very legitimate chances of advancing to the post-season since only 5 points separates them from the Goats and there are 9 points to be had still. They have one more home game against TFC and somehow I doubt they'll have more than 40% of seats full at the Pizza Place they call their stadium. It's sad since they also boast one of the league's top scorers and potential national team star Kenny Cooper (Bradley has yet to name him to the squad and fans are upset). Cooper has 16 goals this season and is second only to record-breaking Landon Donovan (19). Clearly, something needs to be done at the big D if they want to both keep their franchise and/or earn respect. You'll note that they have the lowest mean and the lowest median. Both point to the same huge problem. But I just work with the numbers here people, as sad as some may look. I say bring in another DP player. Maybe a Mexican figure with stature or someone that people actually care about seeing.

MLS Attendance stats week 25

Back to business. Yes, data is a little dated (by a week). Expect another delay before the next installment of MLS attendance stats. For this week I wanted to have you pay close attention to New England's attendance. Notice that they have a higher than normal average (17.751) and also a good change from last year (+964). However, NE suffers from inconsistent attendance. Note that their median is 12,060 and that they've had 3 games less than 10,000. Columbus has enjoyed better attendance in the past few games due to their amazing form. I also leave you with a look at the mean vs median for the eastern conference. Except for NE and NYRB, most teams have pretty steady numbers by these standards.

MLS Attendance stats week 23

Sorry for the long skip in attendance info. I have a life too and there were several loose ends I had to tie up. I'm gonna make this one brief...
As we start looking towards World Cup qualifying not only in the CONCACAF but in CONMEBOL, UEFA and beyond some of the strain in attendance numbers may be felt as fans are notified that their favorite player will not be on the pitch. Then again, an electrifying performance by team USA in the semifinal round of CONCACAF may attract more attention to the national league. Also, let's keep in mind that that other football has taken to the fields as well and plenty of attention will go there as well, not to mention ugly lines on fields that should not be used for soccer. Added is the end of a long summer hiatus in the world's top leagues, i.e. England, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Co.
So what does this slew of factors mean for MLS attendance? From my humble numbers/analysis.... not much. Not yet, at least. Or maybe, just maybe MLS has finally found its niche and worry should be placed on the international status of the league (the Concachampions, salary caps, designated players).
One more point before I go... Columbus. Notoriously low in numbers for most of the season has shown great promise in the past few games as their great form has transcended onto the stands. The last 3 out of 4 home games have had numbers above 16K, and 2 of those, against KC and FCD weren't exactly against high-caliber oponents. I leave you with the Crew's individual numbers.

MLS Attendance stats week 21

It's nice to see the girls get it done in the Olympics. In the meantime the USMNT does their job in Guatemala amidst ridiculous claims that Lewis' facial gash was unintentional when the replay clearly shows the Guatemalan extending his elbow maliciously. To each his own, I guess. And what about the MLS? In the meantime life rolls along and numbers remain average at best (~75% for the most part. Becks and the Galaxians "visited" the Goats and once again sold out the HDC. Chicago continues their run of good form with another near-capacity showing thanks in part to Blanco. McBride should technically keep a good chunk of the crowd coming once Cuau leaves for his homeland (they sorely miss him... just look at WCQ highlights of Wednesday's match against Honduras).
As I had promised previously and keeping with the attendance median theme, I decided to calculate medians for the relative attendance. So, instead of just showing what the median attendance is for each team (which effectively negates the Beckham factor for the other 13 teams in the league), we can now see just how full a stadium is during most of the matches.
I'm including two additional plots here, one for the East and one for the West. Back east New England and Columbus are isolated with low attendances. Notice that New Englands relative attendance average is much higher due to the Brazil doubleheader. DC's numbers are also brought down a bit and from my "star power" analysis Gallardo doesn't seem to be drawing that many fans. New York remains below average even after the Becks crowd, and after last weekend's 11K+ crowd things aren't looking that much better. Also note that KC's numbers are bolstered by their smaller stadium.

The West has the same stories with interesting caveats: RSL's numbers used to be among the best in the league and their lack of form, until just the past couple of months, has taking its toll on numbers. Maybe the new stadium will bring new and old fans alike. Chivas is also showing why its critics are being so harsh and are calling for rebranding and relocation. FCD hasn't been notoriously good in terms of attendance and this analysis also touches on that. Finally, Houston's numbers are low mainly due to its capacity (27K) but generally enjoys crowds that would readily fill 80-90% of smaller SS stadiums.

MLS Attendance stats week 20

OK, enough with the Olympics and the latest Olympic failure. Back to MLS. It was a slow weekend all around as the total attendance stats show. Attendance was average even in relative terms (~75% for the east and ~65% for the west). Keep in mind that there was no Beckham circus this past week and that a good amount of players were missing due to Olympic call-ups. Most notable was the low attendance for the Colorado-TFC game although it should not come as a surprise. Pleasant surprises were the numbers at New England (19K+) and New York (15K+), with an exclamation point on New York since the fans saw their team win decisively.
You'll note that I have eliminated a couple of the ads on the right column and permanently added medians to the list. From several threads on BigSoccer.com, it became evident that an important way to show MLS attendance trends minus Becks was to take out the outliers that changed the means and relative attendance for teams like San Jose, DC, and New York.
Additionally, I thought it would be nice to look at the percentage of the total numbers that each team accounts for in a pie chart, this time for the western conference. You'll note that teams match up pretty evenly throughout and this also compares to the numbers seen in the average and median attendance plots. LA leads, of course.

MLS Attendance stats week 19

Amidst constant squabbling between clubs and national sides and FIFA's position being overturned by outside forces (Sports oversight committee), I bring you a new installment of MLS attendance statistics. Hopefully Messi will be able to play with Argentina and we can have a tournament for the ages. Given that, MLS goes on and attendance numbers are beginning to lean to the positive end for more and more teams as the Becks circus visits town. DCU's faithful still show up in strong numbers (18K) and TFC enjoys the usual full house. Chicago also saw a full house with "el emperador" Claudio Suarez facing off against Blanco. The Fire's numbers have enjoyed a nice upswing this season with constant numbers and a 500+ difference from the end of last season. Adding McBride to the mix at the end of the month will keep the numbers up.

This week's emphasis will once again be a look at the medians. This time I created a plot that compares Median vs Average for the Western conference.









I'm also adding the general median numbers for both conferences in high definition (just click for a full page view) to put everything in perspective. As always, general numbers are constantly updated every week and are on the right column... just scroll and enjoy!

MLS Attendance stats week 18

I concur with my BigSoccer soccerbuds that not much has changed this week in terms of attendance. A few small caveats, however. Dallas saw it's attendance values go up thanks to another sellout Beckham crowd. That also effectively brought their numbers up for the 08-07 difference and their deficit doesn't look quite so bad. Only Columbus and KC remain in attendance difference limbo and both teams have yet to see Becks come to town. The difference from the total final numbers for last season is actually just 289 below. It's safe to assume that final numbers may well be higher than last season's and echoing BigSoccer, this should be the second best attendance record since 1996 (founding of MLS). Some have postulated that maybe we shouldn't be counting that season either.
This time around I wanted to go a bit more in-depth into some of the graphical statistics. Previously I had compared relative attendance to average attendance numbers. I'm doing something similar with the plot on your right except this time it's average attendance vs median for teams in the eastern conference. This is also a way to show how one Beckham game can alter a team's mean attendance but it's median will still be quite small. Such is the case with New England although their higher mean is actually due to a double header with a Brazil international game at Gillette Stadium. When Becks comes to town the numbers should be even higher, effectively masking out the true nature of their poor attendance for a team that is unstoppable this season (minus Twellman!). The plot also reveals that although New York has seen its share of <10K games (2, to be exact), the majority of their games have actually been respectable. DC's median lags behind its mean while the opposite is true for the Crew, who saw the lowest attendance for a single game this season at 6733. KC's average is actually slightly less than its median and this even in an already small venue. TFC rules, enough said (and I'm far from being Canadian).

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 14

Out of the Euro hangover we come to mid-season shake-ups with trades galore from the potential Conde-Ruiz-McBride megadeal to modest acquisitions by the Red Bulls with Rojas, etc. Attendance has finally shown the Beckham effect for the past couple of weeks, if maybe not the immediate ones. Becks has begun his eastern conference tour and numbers for a lot of those teams should be coming up. Don't be too discouraged by the 07-08 difference. Remember that it's the 2007 season total average. On that note, I just recently read that the mean attendance for Fluminense of Brazil is actually around 17,000. Tomorrow's game versus Liga for the Libertadores should attract 90,000+. But isn't it interesting that a brazilian team would have this kind of mean turnout? Actually, it makes sense. People are too poor in latin america to go to every game a-la-EPL. Even some EPL games aren't completely sold out. As always I suggest a certain degree of caution when looking at these numbers. Below is a nice close-up of what the designated players (5 of them, minus Donovan and Reyna) are doing. Note that I will, for the time being, not put american players under this classification to provide a clearer picture. I've highlighted the two spikes (Blanco and Becks) during their visits to San Jose at McAfee. Becks usually hovers around the 100% mark, save for a couple of home games most considered boring. Blanco attracts crowd but it depends on the demographic. Gallardo benefits from the DC crowds and Lopez from the intimacy of the CAB. Angel has dismal numbers from a fickle New York crowd. Also, note that the "stars" may not have played on some of those games.

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.

MLS Attendance stats week 12

Euro or no Euro, people seem to be making it out to games even if it's just to see the stars (Becks in San Jose, Blanco and Davino in Dallas) or other countries play (Brazil-Venezuela prior to the New England game). Still, this is a statistics page and we must stay true to the numbers if these are the ones the league will put out at the end of the season. As is customary the general attendance figures will be on the right column. Starting this week I will add the 2008-2007 difference (also zoomed in below). Things don't look great for a lot of teams including Dallas, New York and Columbus but we can expect better numbers from the latter two once Beckham comes around. It's sad to see Dallas in such a precarious position even having had Becks and Blanco show their DP faces in town. Something must be done here to attract more people to the stands, especially considering that Pizza Hut Park is a soccer-specific venue. Denilson's failure last season shouldn't deter investors/owners from picking a new designated player.
I admit that some of the figures do appear a bit inflated at this time but this surpassing of MLS capacity is largely due to moving venues for San Jose (see image below) from Buck Shaw to McAfee for the LA Galaxy game and New England's Brazil crowd (see week 11's posting). The two peaks for San Jose represent the two games played at McAfee so far this year. All in all, conference and league averages were higher than normal and some team averages such as NE skyrocketed out of the cellar and into (ehem) normalcy.

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.

MLS Attendance stats week 6

Here's a few figures that convey the current trends in the all-important MLS attendance. Toronto gets high marks, of course, with their die-hard fans that show up on week nights with sippy-cup beers and red and white streamers to throw at the opposition. San Jose and Kansas City have smaller stadiums suited to their smaller but loyal fanbases. New England, Columbus and New York are running really low despite a.)being number 2 in the nation (NE), b.)having an awesome team right now (CLB), and c.) being the capital of the world that easily fills Giants stadium when Barcelona or Beckham comes to mind. With that said, I believe everything is relative. Therefore, I have calculated and displayed the relative aspects of MLS attendance. I'll have more figures for you in the future that will also include the role of Becks and Co. in terms of attendance. I will permanently post attendance figures on the right column albeit at a coarser resolution.
In the meantime, some "star power" stats for you:

• Beckham: total in all stadiums (TS) 142,040; relative per capacity (RpC) 91%
• Blanco: TS 98,093; RpC* 108%
• Gallardo: TS 93,452; RpC 72%
• Lopez: TS 84,452; RpC* 88%
• Angel: TS 69,599; RpC 61%

*Blanco's numbers are enhanced by the Earthquake's game being taken to McAfee Coliseum for the match. Lopez's attendance is higher in relative terms since KC's stadium is much smaller. Also worth noting is that Angel did not participate in 3 of the 5 matches NYRB has played so far this season. I figure that these stats will level off once the hype of the start of the season is over and Beckham has covered more arenas.

MLS cummulative stats Week 4

As promised. I've compiled my own analysis of the all important MLS attendance. I've been frustrated by the apparent lack of in-depth attendance figures for the league for those of us that wish for MLS to expand and gain more recognition. In other blogs I've seen plenty of numbers but not enough plots. Plots are an easier/prettier way to gauge numbers. I took it upon myself to devise different methods to analyze MLS attendance in relative terms. All figures were computed using public, official MLS attendance numbers. Note that these are cumulative numbers in the bar plots and pie plots (if provided). Individual team stats will be provided per week for all teams in line graphs as well as the effect of Beckham, Blanco, and the rest of the DP crew. I'll post those next month when more data is available.

1. Plot 1: Computed using relative attendance (actual/MLS capacity). MLS capacity varies by venue and are the official figures of each one of the teams. Note that those teams in larger football stadiums shrink their capacity to reflect the smaller contingent of soccer fans.
2. Plot 2: Actual attendance numbers

• MLS stadium capacity and stadium per team
• Chicago Fire: Toyota Park, 20,000
• Chivas USA: Home Depot Center, 27,000
• Colorado Rapids: Dick's Sporting Goods Park, 18,000
• Columbus Crew: Crew Stadium, 22,500
• DC United: RFK Stadium, 24,500
• FC Dallas: Pizza Hut Park, 20,000
• Kansas City Wizards: Community America Ballpark, 10,385
• Houston Dynamo: Robertson Stadium, 32,000
• LA Galaxy: Home Depot Center, 27,000
• New England Revolution: Gillette Stadium, 20,000
• New York Red Bulls: Giants Stadium, 25,576
• Real Salt Lake: Rice Eccles Stadium, 25,562
• San Jose Earthquakes: Buck Shaw Stadium, 10,500
• Toronto FC: BMO Field, 20,000