MLS Attendance Statistics 2012 Week 5

Week 5 has seen further normalization of the attendance figures for most teams. Thanks to the opening at Montreal, however, the average attendance in 2012 is higher than 2011's by close to 2000. The Red Bulls have slipped further in attendance figures and are now at -2411 relative to 2011 due to smaller number of fans in the last two games. This despite the resurgent Henry and his partner Kenny Cooper, who are obliterating opposition left and right after the team started the season at 0-2.

There is a lot about the MLS statistics on this page that deals with "relative" attendance. That is, the total number divided by the stadium capacity. I always find it more instructive by looking at the whole picture. Century Link Field typically holds twice the available seats at Colorado's Dick's Sporting Goods Park. This doesn't, however, mean that the Rapids' stadium isn't full at 18,000. 

To better illustrate the concept of relative attendance for new visitors to the website, I would like to show the average attendance vs relative for the Western Conference. Notice that both Seattle and Portland sell out their games and are therefore at 100%, but their average attendance differs by about 18,000 seats. A team like Chivas plays at the Home Depot Center with a capacity of 27,000. Their low attendance numbers, coupled with low relative attendance relegates the squad to the lower left quadrant of the plot. However, this relative figure may need to be revised since it looks like the Goats have lowered their expected attendance figures, as can be seen by the large plastic Chivas mats covering seats on the end stands.

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 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).