The Ljungberg Trade

As a Fire fan, I was a little surprised that they acquired Freddie Ljungberg for the MLS equivalent of a bag of soccer balls (well, at least now that Supplemental Draft picks no longer exist.) He's certainly talented, and his contract only runs until the end of the year so it's a low-risk maneuver for the Men in Red, but Shawn Francis over at The Offside Rules captures the existential malaise surrounding the deal.

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.

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

The Burning Busch

I'm a big Chicago Fire fan, and I thought last year's signing of Jon Busch to play goalkeeper was absolutely inspired. He was a rock at the back, and was named to the MLS Best XI team.

Busch has been more erratic this year, letting in a couple of awful goals from distance. Hopefully his rough patch is behind him, because no Fire fan wants to see more goals like these from Kenny Cooper and Paulo Nagamura.










Oh the pain.

Fire Draft Husidic

In this year's draft, my beloved Chicago Fire traded up to snag University of Illinois-Chicago midfielder Baggio Husidic. One of the most highly-regarded prospects in the draft, he scored two goals from two shots at the MLS combine. He'll get at least one year of tutelage under Cuauhtemoc Blanco in the Fire midfield and could be his successor one day. His Generation Adidas status (which means he does not count against the salary cap or take up a senior roster spot) certainly doesn't hurt either.

Husidic may also have the best pure soccer name in the draft. How can someone named Baggio not be a soccer star. Perhaps the next few years will see Beckenbauer Konstantinov or Maradona Jones enter the league.

Farewell to Diego Gutierrez

When the season ended, Major League Soccer lost a good player and truly great guy -- Diego Gutierrez. A "fire original" and veteran of 316 games in the league, Diego hung up his boots after 12 seasons. A stalwart with the Chicago Fire, he ended his career with the team fifth in games played, minutes played and assists.

Off the field, Gutierrez was the 2007 MLS Humanitarian of the year, and is heavily involved with Nothing But Nets, which helps purchase and distribute bed nets to curb mosquito-borne malaria in Africa.

For everything, both on and off the field, thank you!