MLS Attendance Drops for 2008

By: Laurie | November 6th, 2008

The biggest lesson to be learned from the 2008 MLS attendance figures? The more the LA Galaxy suck, the more people will go to their games. In 2007 they almost made the playoffs but didn’t, and their figures were best in the league. In 2008 they were even worse and their numbers are up more than 7%.

I know, right?

The 2008 league attendance figures (at bottom) are good for the Galaxy, and for a few other teams, like the New England Revolution and the Houston Dynamo. (Those figures might actually be performance-based. New England and Houston were the teams in the playoff finals in both 2006 and 2007. Which would mean that there might in some cases be a relationship between attendance and performance. Novel concept.) The numbers were also good news for Chivas USA, who were close to the bottom in attendance in 2007, but are now sitting close to the middle.

But good numbers for a few teams didn’t translate to good numbers for the league as a whole, where attendance dropped 1.8% overall, to 16,459 per game. In all, six teams saw their attendance figures rise, while seven saw them drop.

MLS blames the overall league drop on the fact that Kansas City moved to a smaller 10,385-seat stadium this year, but Kansas City had miserable numbers last year too, and the numbers show a drop from last year even when KC is excluded. As a matter of fact, with the party bus (still the best promo idea ever, in my opinion) Kansas City averaged more than a sellout crowd for each game, and 500 per game more than last year (although this was helped by a Galaxy-Beckham game that was moved to the KC Chiefs’ Arrowhead Stadium.)

This drop isn’t entirely unexpected — it was going to be hard to maintain the excitement that Beckham generated when he came to MLS last year. But it’s still a disappointing sign that the league has a lot of work to do before soccer can compete in the US with the Big Three: football, basketball and baseball.

Maybe it would help if Beckham and the Galaxy made the playoffs?

ATTENDANCE FIGURES:

Team, Avg. attendance, % change

Los Angeles Galaxy, 26,009, 7.20%
Toronto FC, 20,108, -0.10%
D.C. United, 19,835, -5.40%
New England Revolution, 17,580, 5.00%
Chicago Fire, 17,034, 3.30%
Houston Dynamo, 16,939, 6.60%
Real Salt Lake, 16,179, 1.40%
New York Red Bulls, 15,928, -3.60%
Chivas USA, 15,114, 5.70%
Columbus Crew, 14,622, -4.00%
San Jose Earthquakes, 13,713, N/A
Colorado Rapids, 13,659, -7.40%
FC Dallas, 13,024, -14.00%
Kansas City Wizards* 10,686 -7.80%
Totals 16,459, -1.80%
* Includes Sept. 13 game vs. Los Angeles played at Arrowhead Stadium (posted att.: 26,113)