MLS Attendance: The Sophomore Slump

With the impending addition of franchises in Philly, Vancouver and Portland, I thought it would be interesting to see how much of a "sophomore slump" expansion franchises experienced in regards to attendance.

Here are the numbers for the recent expansion teams, as well as Houston who moved from San Jose in 2006. The Year 1 number is the mean attendance. The successive year numbers are the percent difference compared to the team's first year.

           Year 1  Year 2  Year 3  Year 4
Chicago    17,887  -10.5   -25.2    -8.4
Chivas USA 17,080   16.2   -16.2   -11.5
Salt Lake  18,037   -9.3   -11.5   -10.3
Houston    18,935  -16.1   -10.5   -14.9*
Toronto    20,130    0.0   +1.0*    n/a
* season still in progress

The stat line for Chivas USA shows the danger of using the mean attendance, rather than the median. In 2006, they hosted the Revolution as part of a doubleheader that included Chivas Guadalajara. That game drew over 92,000 fans -- almost 30% of their total attendance for the year. If you factor out that anomaly, their attendance looks like this:

           Year 1  Year 2  Year 3  Year 4
Chivas USA 17,080  -12.3   -16.2   -11.5

What surprised me about the numbers is that for most teams, attendance kept falling for two years, rather than just one. Houston and Toronto managed to buck that trend.

There has been recent buzz that Seattle has a 6,000 person waiting list for season tickets, and as such may raise their seating capacity next season. If they in fact see a significant boost to attendance in their second season, they would be the first expansion franchise to do so, further underlining how amazing that franchise's support has been.

To be fair, Toronto could probably sell more tickets right now, but they can't expand their capacity without some major construction.

Houston - Where Mediocre Forwards Go to Score

There seems to be something about Houston that awakens the scoring touch of forwards. Here are three recent examples of players who reaped the rewards of joining one of Major League Soccer's best teams.

Kei Kamara
Houston 19 gm 5 g 3 a .26 gpg
SJ/Clb  48 gm 7 g 0 a .15 gpg

Nate Jaqua
Seattle 12 gm  3 g  4 a .25 gpg
Houston 29 gm 10 g  6 a .34 gpg
Chi/LA  92 gm 21 g 11 a .23 gpg

Joseph Ngwenya
Houston 25 gm 7 g 3 a .28 gpg
Clb/LA  65 gm 9 g 4 a .13 gpg

With these sorts of results, Dominic Oduro, Cam Weaver and Abe Thompson have to feel pretty lucky right now.

Houston vs. Pachuca = 2 Goals for Someone

The Houston Dynamo is competing in just its fourth season in MLS, but when they square off with Pachuca again in two weeks, it will already be the sixth time they have tangled with the Tuzos. If they can win the game, it will actually level the overall series at three wins apiece:

9/16/09 Pachuca 2, Houston 0 (CONCACAF Champions League)
7/29/08 Pachuca 0, Houston 2 (Superliga)
3/15/07 Pachuca 0, Houston 2 (CONCACAF Champions Cup)
4/05/07 Pachuca 5, Houston 2 (CONCACAF Champions Cup)
8/14/07 Pachuca 2, Houston 2* (Superliga)
*Pachuca wins on PKs

Going by the numbers, I predict a 2-0 Houston win at Robinson Stadium on the 30th.

So Who Named Aciphex?

The other day I was watching television and saw an advertisement for something called Aciphex. As far as I can tell, it's a medication for acid reflux. I'm sure it's a fine product full of wondrous medicinal properties, but I can't help but think that the people who named it are off snickering to themselves right now.

The reason is that when spoken Aciphex sounds exactly like "Ass Effects." I literally turned around thinking my kids had flipped the TV to something inappropriate only to find out the person saying "ass effects" over and over again was hawking pharmaceuticals.

Once the kids were out of earshot, the jokes flew fast and furious between my wife and I:

• Dude, I wouldn't have divorced her if she had aciphex!
• The chili cook-off, while tasty, produced deadly aciphex.
• Did you see that movie? It has awesome aciphex!

Personally, I think Aciphex sounds like a niche gentleman's magazine. All you would need to do is change the spelling slightly...

Original photo from:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tati_chilli/ / CC BY 2.0

MLS Attendance - Smallest % of Tickets Sold

To follow up last week's post about the teams who had been seen by the largest percentage of fans, I ran the numbers to determine which teams had been seen by the smallest percentage of fans.

There have been 35 teams that were seen by less than 15% of the fans attending games that season. The only year no team fell below this threshold was 2002. These are the 10 worst seasons to date:

  year  team   home    away     team ttl league ttl  % sold
1 1999  KC    130,924  191,229  322,153  2,742,102   11.75
2 2000  Miami 119,352  212,710  332,062  2,641,085   12.57
3 2007  KC    173,784  240,809  414,593  3,270,210   12.68
4 2001  KC    142,402  166,060  308,462  2,363,859   13.05
5 1998  KC    129,163  230,245  359,408  2,747,897   13.08
6 2007  COLO  221,229  215,154  436,383  3,270,210   13.34
7 2006  KC    177,322  225,194  402,516  2,976,787   13.52
7 1996  COLO  163,413  213,236  376,649  2,785,001   13.52
9 1998  DAL   175,162  198,315  373,477  2,747,897   13.59
10 2005 KC    155,060  239,894  394,954  2,900,716   13.62

Two franchises have fallen under the 15% line eight different times -- Kansas City and Dallas. That's almost 46% of the total number of seasons under the qualifying line.

Interestingly Colorado is 6th on the list even though they drew better at home than on the road. That has only happened eight times:
2000 DAL, COLO
2005 SJ
2006 CHI
2007 RSL, NE, HOU, COLO

MLS Attendance - Percent of Tickets Sold

One of the folks who commented on the Expansion's Effect on MLS Attendance post pointed out that the Sounders have been seen by over 20% of the people attending a game this year. Another person thought that David Beckham's Flying Circus had probably beaten that mark. (This is in fact true.)

However it turns out that neither of these sides hold the record for the largest percentage of tickets sold to see a given team in a season. That record is currently held by the 1996 Los Angeles Galaxy.

  year team     home    away  tm ttl league ttl % sold
1 1996 LA    462,650 346,210 808,860 2,785,001  29.04
2 2004 DC    258,484 355,289 613,773 2,333,797  26.30
3 1997 LA    330,015 248,179 578,194 2,339,019  24.72
4 2004 LA    357,137 217,411 574,548 2,333,797  24.62
5 1996 Metro 382,360 295,952 678,312 2,785,001  24.36
6 1997 NE    342,762 221,566 564,328 2,339,019  24.13
7 2003 LA    329,752 209,091 538,843 2,234,747  24.11
8 2007 LA    363,782 420,525 784,307 3,270,210  23.98
  2005 LA    387,256 308,241 695,497 2,900,716  23.98
10 1997 DC   267,171 287,944 555,115 2,339,019  23.73

For those wondering, if the season ended today Seattle would end up with the 23rd best mark.

Expansion's Effect on MLS Attendance

There's an assumption that expansion teams dramatically help league-wide attendance in their first year. While it's true that these team usually draw above the league average at home, their overall impact is actually a lot less than I expected. The reason is that these teams don't draw especially well on the road.

In 2007 Toronto came into the league, and average attendance was just 0.75% higher including their games.

               total att.   games   mean
2007 all        3,270,210    195    16,770
TOR home          301,947     15    20,130
TOR away          221,650     15    14,777
totals w/o TOR  2,746,613    165    16,646

Chivas USA and Real Salt Lake joined in 2005, and average attendance was 3.82% higher factoring in their games. This was helped in part by the Superclassico which drove Chivas' "road" attendance significantly above the league average.

                total att.  games    mean
2005 all         2,900,716    192   15,108
CHV home           273,284     16   17,080
CHV away           268,176     16   16,761
RSL home           288,586     16   18,037
RSL away           207,985     16   12,999
adj. totals      1,862,685    128   14,552

In 1998, the Fire and Miami Fusion joined the league. Average attendance was just 0.48% higher when their games are included. Oddly enough, the Fusion's road numbers were actually higher than the league average, but their home attendance more than offset this. If you factor out the Fusion, and just include the Fire's numbers, the attendance was 2.18% better off with them in the league.

               total att.     games     mean
1998 all        2,747,897      192    14,312
CHI home          286,190       16    17,887
CHI away          220,734       16    13,796
MIA home          164,548       16    10,284
MIA away          253,269       16    15,829
adj. totals     1,823,156      128    14,243

This brings us to to this year. Seattle's phenomenal home support really has been a boon to the league average. Their 30,000+ average thus far has actually led to an 8.18% increase in average attendance even though their average road attendance is roughly 1,200 fans below the league average.

                total att.     games    mean
2009 all         2,755,194      175    15,744
sea home           397,628       13    30,587
sea away           159,951       11    14,541
totals w/o SEA   2,197,615      151    14,554

So How Big Are Video Games?

Below is a smattering of the 25 most popular magazines in the United States. Evidently video games are less popular than being old, having a nice house and celebrities but more popular than current events, sports, and boobs.

1. AARP the Magazine — 24,554,819
4. Better Homes and Gardens — 7,634,197
11. People — 3,615,858
12. Game Informer — 3,601,201
13. Time — 3,372,240
16. Sports Illustrated — 3,252,298
25. Playboy — 2,453,266

US - El Salvador: Ties to MLS

When the United States takes on El Salvador two hours from now, four faces familiar to MLS fans could take the field. Three players on the roster currently ply their trade in MLS:

• Alfredo Pacheco (New York Red Bulls)
• Arturo Alvarez (San Jose Earthquakes)
• Ramon Sanchez (San Jose Earthquakes)

A fourth, Eliseo Quintanilla played in 27 games for DC United between 2002 and 2003.