MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Final Week: Part 2

Now we look at the difference between 2011 and 2010 for the whole season and every team. The difference plot shows that MLS overall gained 1142. Compared to 2009 (+2820) the number is even larger. Even with the Beckham effect in 2008 (+1175) and 2007 (+1088), 2011 still shows impressive gains. It comes down to two factors: new soccer specific stadiums and the Pacific Northwest Teams.

Seven teams gained over 1000 seats and 4 approached or surpassed the 2000 seat mark. Kansas City had specific gains due to the opening of Livestrong Sporting Park. New York, LA and Colorado made significant gains since last year. Seattle gained close to 2000 seats due to the New York game and Keller's goodbye match.

The negatives this year included Columbus (-2520 since 2010), Chicago (-1541) and Toronto (-187, although this is negligible). This may be due to the lack of important stars and results for the teams and good DP signings or homegrown stars may ameliorate the numbers in 2012.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Final Week: Part 1

Fact: 2011 had the highest attendance in league history
Fact: Seattle once again topped itself with the highest attendance in the league (38496) and would lie 6th in attendance figures if playing in the Premier League
Fact: Portland and Seattle sold out every single match in 2011
Fact: Compared to 2010, all but 3 teams showed positive increase in attendance
Fact: New stadiums attract more fans (KC, NY)
Fact: Seattle continues to sell out US Open Cup

Figures will be updated in the next few postings.

Here are the final numbers:

Team	Average	Relative	Median
DC	15196	62	14849
KC	17812	96	18467
NE	13222	66	12914
CLB	12185	60	11298
TOR	20267	88	20145
CHI	14273	71	14567
NYRB	19691	78	20393
PHI	18258	99	18524
HOU	17694	66	17544
LA	23330	86	23719
CHV	14829	55	14076
DAL	12933	63	11022
SJ	11858	113	10525
CRD	14838	82	14503
RSL	17594	88	17734
SEA	38496	108	36304
POR	18827	101	18627
VAN	20412	97	20518

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 33

Magnificent Seattle. Over 64,000 in attendance for Kasey Keller's farewell match. Can anyone else match that? Perhaps once Donovan or Dempsey retires. Maybe the LA Colliseum or Rose Bowl. Maybe for Tim Howard there will be enough to approach Seattle's attendance for Keller? In New York? Seattle has set the bar pretty high once more.

This is the penultimate week of MLS attendance stats. The Sounders continue in front, having raised their average by 2000 over last year. KC, relatively speaking, has doubled its attendance due to their new stadium. LA, Dallas and Colorado have all had good gains from 2010. Chicago and Columbus continue to struggle a bit although recent matches have seen higher number of seats filled, especially for the Crew as they gear up for the playoffs.

The stats:

Team	Average	Relative	Median
DC	15203	62	14849
KC	18070	98	18467
NE	13631	68	13164
CLB	12185	60	11298
TOR	20183	88	20139
CHI	13898	69	14203
NYRB	19356	77	20039
PHI	18258	99	18524
HOU	16491	61	16478
LA	23330	86	23719
CHV	14470	54	14067
DAL	12933	63	11022
SJ	11928	114	10525
CRD	14881	82	14706
RSL	17248	86	16841
SEA	38496	108	36304
POR	18827	101	18627
VAN	20334	97	20226

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 30

Recent results and matches have shown the staying power of the league both on and off the pitch. A week ago, the Washington Post's Soccer Insider blog remarked on a particularly high-attendance game week (29). Depending upon how you slice it, you could end up with vastly different numbers. However, granted equity in our analysis, a few things do stand out: Dallas (17109), Columbus (21203, only sellout of the season), Salt Lake (19888), New York (25000). Great numbers even though football season (gridiron variety) is in full swing. Add to this the perpetual sellouts in the Pacific Northwest and we are talking about the second-highest attendance record in league history; second only to the inaugural season.

The numbers as of this week:

Team	Average	Relative	Median
DC	15107	62	14477
KC	17945	97	18467
NE	13206	66	12914
CLB	11974	59	11272
TOR	20187	88	20145
CHI	14170	71	14567
NYRB	18967	75	19684
PHI	18217	98	18524
HOU	16410	61	16247
LA	22840	85	22959
CHV	14470	54	14067
DAL	13103	64	11138
SJ	12021	114	10525
CRD	14850	82	14706
RSL	17029	85	16571
SEA	36932	103	36287
POR	18627	100	18627
VAN	20585	98	20518

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 24

As the league nears the end of the regular season, some teams have seen an upswing in attendance. This is especially important now that the NFL and College Football restart their fall run. Columbus has seen modest gains, as has New York. West coast teams remain strong and the addition of Keane to the Galaxy may bring about sellout games to Hollywood once more.

Here are the numbers:

Team	Average	Relative	Median
DC	15024	61	13735
KC	17687	96	18467
NE	13015	65	12337
COL	11278	55	11246
TOR	20105	87	20122
CHI	13919	70	13156
NYRB	18796	75	19237
PHI	18308	99	18558
HOU	16266	60	15712
LA	23044	85	23719
CHV	14714	54	14058
DAL	12984	63	11138
SJ	12128	116	10401
CRD	14617	81	14185
RSL	16704	84	16220
SEA	37120	104	36326
POR	18627	100	18627
VAN	20580	98	20518

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 21

Sorry for another delay, folks! Lots of stuff happening so I had to divide my time accordingly. With Europe restarting this month, most attention will be shifted away from MLS. However, expect strong attendance to continue in the Pacific Northwest and new strongholds in the east (Philly, KC). Some of the other locations might take a hit from NFL and college football as fall sports begin play.

For the current attendance analysis we have Columbus and New England constantly struggling to fill the stands. Toronto and DCU's poor form is also reflected on their attendance. Conversely, Colorado and Dallas continue to make gains relative to 2010 and surely owe their success to their MLS Cup final last season.

I wanted to look at medians again but this time for the west and for the relative attendance. The plot above shows that most teams see over 80% in stadium capacity for most games except for Dallas (64%) and Chivas (54%). Note, however, that Dallas has made a gain of over 2000 seats since last year.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 19

Generally good attendance has been the norm for the past couple of weeks. The only exceptions would be Houston last week (12047) and San Jose (8122). Never mind the unyielding heat east of the Rockies. People are coming out to the games.

I thought I would look at another interesting piece of data. I do a lot with "relative attendance" (actual/capacity) in addition to mean and median. The relative attendance is usually for the mean. But what about the median relative attendance? This week I look at the Eastern Conference. We see that, on any given week, DCU is at 61% capacity as well as New England (65%). Lowest here are Houston (56%) and Columbus (52%). Do note, however, that Houston's capacity far exceeds most of the Eastern Conference (27000). KC (100%), TFC (87%) and Philadelphia (99%) are the highest.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 17

Copa America or not, MLS must continue. Now with most of their players in hand, the league continues to see strong attendance, especially over the holiday weekend with sold out venues from LA to Dallas and San Jose to Colorado. Kansas City's form stretches not only through its impressive unbeaten run but also to its shining new home at Livestrong Sporting Park. San Jose's numbers may seem inflated but this is because it chose to play at a larger venue for the New York match.

Most interesting from the 2011-2010 plot is the fact that 8 teams are in the positive and 8 in the negative (Portland and Vancouver don't count as this is their first year in the league). Of the 8 teams in the negative only 3 are more negative than -1000. However, all 8 teams in the positive are above 1000.

The numbers:

Team	Average	Relative	Median
DC	15696	64	14105
KC	18017	98	18467
NE	12675	63	12337
COL	10483	51	10306
TOR	19876	86	20086
CHI	14026	70	13156
NYRB	17878	71	18081
PHI	18177	98	18372
HOU	16411	61	15176
LA	22739	84	23719
CHV	15111	56	14058
DAL	13278	65	11138
SJ	13367	127	10276
CRD	14735	81	14185
RSL	16066	80	15513
SEA	37265	104	36255
POR	18627	100	18627
VAN	20019	95	20518

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 15

Sorry for the long lapse in stats analysis. It's been quite busy elsewhere and only one person manages the desk at Futbol USA. One of the more important events in the past few weeks is the inauguration of Livestrong Sporting Park in Kansas City, the new home of Sporting KC. Beautiful location and one the national team will remember for a while (just see some comments by Edu, Donovan and Co. at ussoccer.com). In MLS play, the stadium has been sold out and is a welcome sight after years at cavernous Arrowhead Stadium and CommunityAmerica Ballpark (slightly over 10,000 capacity). Because of KC's stadium and the fact that they just now started playing at home, its numbers will look relatively inflated. Remember that it's doubling its previous capacity so crowds will be bigger.

As was posted before, the median of the attendance can now more appropriately be used to gauge the approximate attendance any particular team has had this season. Above is the average - median relationship for the Western Conference. Unlike the East, there is more of a one-to-one relationship for most stadiums. Notable differences are Dallas and Chivas. Dallas had higher attendance for its opening day and when the Galaxy came to town. The same goes for Chivas (sellout at the HDC for the SuperClasico).

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 12

Two months and 12 game weeks in, 2011 is just barely over 2010 in terms of overall attendance. Columbus is mostly the driving factor with over 3000 less seats filled in average during the present season compared to last year. Add to this the delay in home play for Kansas City and the numbers brought in by sellouts in Cascadia do not change the overall figures that much.

At this point we can also start playing with other numbers such as the median. If we look at the Eastern conference alone, we see that the mean for Houston, for example is much higher (>2000) than the median. DC also exhibits similar numbers, albeit smaller than Houston's. Conversely, New England seems to have slightly higher median attendance numbers than the mean suggests. This is mostly due to one or two dates with numbers far below 10,000.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Weeks 10 & 11

In response to comments from our readers, I've elected to show some numbers this week. No in-depth analysis for the sake of brevity. DC United remains strong in its attendance average but its last few games have been below 13,000. FC Dallas is also riding high on a couple of strong dates. I will do an analysis of median vs mean next week. For now, here are the magic numbers:

Team	Average	Relative	Median
DC	16344	67	15276
KC
NE	10893	54	11587
COL	10199	50	10306
TOR	19557	85	20086
CHI	13628	68	12315
NYRB	17191	68	16366
PHI	18045	98	18591
HOU	14954	55	14191
LA	24496	91	24998
CHV	14648	54	13722
DAL	14258	70	12185
SJ	9879	94	10276
CRD	13243	73	12987
RSL	16672	83	15907
SEA	36350	102	36287
POR	18627	100	18627
VAN	19987	91	20664

Sporting Kansas City still hasn't played at home, hence the missing numbers.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Week 9

The MLS stats may be getting a bit lost amongst all the European (and Mexican) season closure craziness. But we still wonder about our own league and our version of the sport. This week's post is brief, but I'd like to mention (or reiterate) the importance of the Pacific Northwest. If the season ended right now, the average attendance would be 17266. That's up 550 from last year. If we take away Seattle, Portland and Vancouver, it drops down to 15553. Taking Seattle out alone for last year brings that total to 15397. Above is a pie chart of the Western conference total attendance by percentage. The Cascadia teams alone rack up 48% of the 9-team conference. And yes, Seattle's numbers are always above 36,000. All the more reason to include its influence.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Game Weeks 7 & 8

It has dawned on me that although this may be the seventh actual week of MLS play, it really is game week 9. As thus, I'm renaming the statistics series of posts "game week" instead of "week."
With that aside, I'd like to provide another important caveat: although Philadelphia looks to have lost in the attendance difference from 2010, the reality is different. Initially, the Union played a couple of games at Lincoln Financial Field (home of the Eagles). Those games were over 30,000 and 20,000, far more than the 18500 seats available at PPL Park. Their average right now is ~17,000, very close to last year's when you factor out the games at the football stadium. We are likely to see the same process (although opposite effect) when Sporting Kansas City starts playing at Livestrong Field, which has twice as much space as Community America Ballpark.

Okay, back to the stats. Columbus and New England continue to struggle whilst Dallas is the biggest winner (aside from the Galaxy). Indeed, Dallas had a sellout, albeit very wet, outing against the Galaxy. Even better, the crowds were payed back through a clutch win versus the West Coast giants. No need to get too worried about the New York, Houston and Chicago markets, as they are likely to stabilize and remain close to last year's numbers.

As promised, above is a plot showing the relationship between relative attendance and actual average attendance for teams in the Eastern Conference. Notice that Philly has attendance near the 100% relative mark but is smaller next to DCU and Toronto given those teams' larger capacity stadiums. Columbus and New England are at the other end of the spectrum. Both are well below the other teams both in average attendance and relative. As far as actual numbers, New England is presently half full (49%) whilst Columbus is slightly higher than that (54%).

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Weeks 5 & 6

Weeks 5 and 6 had to be a combo due to the midweek matches. Real Salt Lake gets a pass for the Monterrey games. We're all behind you as MLS fans.

New England continues to struggle, as does Chicago and Columbus. New York, surprisingly, is also well below its stats from last year. This is quite inexcusable due to the form of Henry, Ream, Agudelo, Marquez, Lindpere and just the team in general. The lowest attendance has been 14,000, well below the capacity of 25,000.

I make a lot of points about relative attendance, which is the actual numbers divided by the capacity. It's an interesting statistic worth exploring when one sees how full (empty) a stadium really is. Bigger stadiums look emptier than small ones depending on crowds. When it comes to Western Conference teams, stadiums are typically much fuller than the East. A simple scatter plot above shows the relationship between relative and average attendance. Notice that many teams are close to 100 even though some, like San Jose, have smaller stadiums (i.e. higher relative attendance). Conversely, a team like Chivas is much lower in the relative axis due to its large capacity (27,000).

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Week 4

We are now in the 4th week of play and attendance remains strong for the most part. FC Dallas, although only having an average of just under 12,000 for their last couple of matches, still pulls off an average of over 14,000 given their sellout opening game. They are clearly doing something right both on and off the pitch. Vancouver has also had the novelty sellout crowds and continue to show how strong soccer is in the Pacific Northwest market. The Portland Timbers open their new home venue at Jen-Weld Field on Thursday. This match attracts special interest on my part, as I will probably attend a few games this season.

Some of the weaker markets are already showing their poor attendance, however. Most notable are New England and Columbus. A more detailed look at the difference between seasons is presented in the two plots above. For the yellow bars (2011-2010), New England lags behind last year's average by over 3,000. Compare that to 2009 (green bars) and it is over 4,000. Something needs to be done to address this. Not to mention that their total numbers are in the four-digit category. New England used to be one of the strongest markets early in the league's history. Is it management? Players? The venue? Steve Nicol is a great coach but sometimes fresh ideas can inject energy into a team (and crowd). Hyndmann did it for Dallas.

Also on the losing end is Columbus. The 2008 champions have struggled in attendance for the past couple of years, even with the presence of Barros-Schelotto. They also recently lost their jersey sponsor, Glidden, before their contract was up. Finally, Chicago is also well below their past attendance numbers when C. Blanco was playing. Bringing is Ljundberg and Nery Castillo payed very little dividends and aren't in the team anymore.

Expect other markets like Houston and Toronto to stabilize. Their fan base is strong and their stadiums are usually full. More stats will come by the middle of next week as a combo of weeks 5 and 6.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Week 3

Week 3. Interesting trends. Scheduling is always tough in a sports-mad society like America. With MLB opening days and March Madness, not to mention ongoing NBA, and one has to have priorities. Clearly, for some of the markets, MLS isn't a priority. New England continues to struggle with their attendance no matter who comes to town. This time it was the Timbers and I enjoyed watching some Timbers fans in the stands. Also on the same boat is Red Bull New York. Their impressive stadium always looks a bit sad when the Red Bull logo is so prominent in place of spectators.

Dallas, who had an impressive opening day, also collapsed in the second week. The same is true for the reigning champs: Colorado Rapids. Their figures for this week didn't hit the 5 digit mark. Granted, it was cold and snowy, but that usually doesn't stop fans in this country. And props to those that showed up. It's tough getting there when the weather's bad. I know first hand. And yet, the LA Galaxy holds strong in their attendance, nearly 25,000 this week. And the signs held up by fans reading "We love Beckham" brings it right home. It's about stars, and it's worth it when it is. Then again, the west coast is much more consistent in attendance than the east. Just have a look at the relative attendance as of week 3:

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Week 2

Before I dive into the statistics for this week, I wanted to restate the purpose of this analysis. It is really twofold: as a scientist I am interested in trends and relative terms. Thus, the "relative attendance" factor, which is derived from the stadium capacity, is a look at how full a stadium really is. Having been to two opening days: Rapids (2010) and Sounders (2011), it became clearer that a number be defined. For the Rapids, the attendance was 11,641 (64%). I had posted on Twitter that it was a nice crowd and I believed so until someone replied that "it looked empty."

Seattle, of course, is the pernnially sold-out venue for soccer fans. The stadium can hold up to 67,000 for football matches has a reduced MLS capacity of 36,500. Opening day had 36,443. And it was precicely after this match that, as we walked out of the stadium, I heard several conversations about how full the stadium was and why they didn't expand it further, given its NFL capacity. That's a tough sell in this country, even by Seattle's standards. This is why most soccer venues are usually for 20,000 spectators. It's more cost effective for the team and the fans and it adds intimacy to the experience.

But for opening day this season a couple of weak markets (in recent years) showed very well. FC Dallas opened at 20,104 this season (8016 for opening day 2010). Colorado, the reigning champs, opened with a crowd of 17,139, approaching capacity. Real Salt Lake, Vancouver, LA Galaxy and Philadelphia also sold out for opening day. Decent (>70%) crowds were present for the New York, DC and Toronto. Do temper your judgement, however. Paltry crowds were present for a rebuilding Columbus Crew, New England, Chicago, as well as the second game in Dallas.

Graphics are on the right column. All data is derived from official match reports and stadium capacity.

MLS 2011 Attendance Statistics Week 1

Just a quick update. I have posted the new graphics on the right hand column. A more substantial post with some analysis of the first two weeks of MLS will be posted after this weekend's matches. This has been a very interesting and successful start for the season, with sellout crowds in Vancouver, Dallas, Colorado, LA, to name a few. Quite a difference from recent years. More to come.