SOCCER NOW 3RD MOST ATTENDED SPORT IN USA

The Juggler

mls passed the nhl a while ago, now it just passed the nba this year.

looking at tv ratings and stuff, i still think its the 4th or 5th most popular sport in the country. but this is pretty significant for the sport i would think. they need a new playoff system though. aggregate scoring? :? :

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/20 ... rts-league

81

hmm...how does MLS soccor correlate with immigration?

The Juggler

81 wrote:

hmm...how does MLS soccor correlate with immigration?

you actually may have a point.


i know the philly team sells out every game. like 17k each time out.

Brisk.

You mean football?

81

Brisk. wrote:

You mean football?

Footballl leads the way....soccer is a distant 3rd.

81

The Juggler wrote:

81 wrote:

hmm...how does MLS soccor correlate with immigration?

you actually may have a point.


i know the philly team sells out every game. like 17k each time out.

this is hearsay, but a guy at work had free tickets, or took his kids or whatever...ended up at the game

he was saying it was a very brown crowd.

Cliffy6745

81 wrote:

The Juggler wrote:

81 wrote:

hmm...how does MLS soccor correlate with immigration?

you actually may have a point.


i know the philly team sells out every game. like 17k each time out.

this is hearsay, but a guy at work had free tickets, or took his kids or whatever...ended up at the game

he was saying it was a very brown crowd.

And basketball is a very black crowd in many citites and golf is an all white crowd. Whats the point?

Cliffy6745

Pretty cool news though. I like this.

Phantom Pain

The Juggler wrote:

mls passed the nhl a while ago

:x

81

Cliffy6745 wrote:

And basketball is a very black crowd in many citites and golf is an all white crowd. Whats the point?

old data, but still shows the point

http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/pdf/ ... tation.pdf

the point was, mls attendance may be driven by hispanics....if it was driven by whites, attendance wouldn't be as good imo

next time you see an NBA game that is mostly black, it will be the first time.

Cliffy6745

81 wrote:

Cliffy6745 wrote:

And basketball is a very black crowd in many citites and golf is an all white crowd. Whats the point?

old data, but still shows the point

http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/pdf/ ... tation.pdf

the point was, mls attendance may be driven by hispanics....if it was driven by whites, attendance wouldn't be as good imo

next time you see an NBA game that is mostly black, it will be the first time.

I'm not arguing the fact, I just don't see what the relevance is. Different races/cultures like different sports, is this some big revelation?

Mostly black no? But definitely more black than any other sport. So what?

And I have not been but from what I understand the Union draw an awesome crowd and the games are a blast.

The Juggler

Cliffy6745 wrote:

81 wrote:

Cliffy6745 wrote:

And basketball is a very black crowd in many citites and golf is an all white crowd. Whats the point?

old data, but still shows the point

http://www.soccersiliconvalley.com/pdf/ ... tation.pdf

the point was, mls attendance may be driven by hispanics....if it was driven by whites, attendance wouldn't be as good imo

next time you see an NBA game that is mostly black, it will be the first time.

I'm not arguing the fact, I just don't see what the relevance is. Different races/cultures like different sports, is this some big revelation?

Mostly black no? But definitely more black than any other sport. So what?

And I have not been but from what I understand the Union draw an awesome crowd and the games are a blast.

i think it's interesting to see the demographics. aren't you a marketing guy?

union crowds seem pretty caucasion to me though. lot of soccer fans around these parts...more suburbs than in the city i would think.

The Juggler

Phantom Pain wrote:

The Juggler wrote:

mls passed the nhl a while ago

:x

sorry...well not around here at least. eagles-phils-flyers-union-sixers at this point. :x

Cliffy6745

The Juggler wrote:

i think it's interesting to see the demographics. aren't you a marketing guy?

union crowds seem pretty caucasion to me though. lot of soccer fans around these parts...more suburbs than in the city i would think.

Oh no doubt, I am, and it's definitely interesting. I just took it as a knock on the attendance, like it was a bad thing. I am sure that Southern Cal is 90% hispanic crowds whereas the Union is the reverse. Philly is a pretty good soccer city. Always good crowds for big games at the bar. Where I am, it's very european watching the games, definitely more Europeans in the city than the burbs though.

FenwayFaithful

More attended than NASCAR? I find that hard to believe.

The Juggler

FenwayFaithful wrote:

More attended than NASCAR? I find that hard to believe.

nascar doesn't count.

UpSideDown

lol @ soccer

Johnnyguitarwatson

Hockey is still better

81

Cliffy6745 wrote:

The Juggler wrote:

i think it's interesting to see the demographics. aren't you a marketing guy?

union crowds seem pretty caucasion to me though. lot of soccer fans around these parts...more suburbs than in the city i would think.

Oh no doubt, I am, and it's definitely interesting. I just took it as a knock on the attendance, like it was a bad thing. I am sure that Southern Cal is 90% hispanic crowds whereas the Union is the reverse. Philly is a pretty good soccer city. Always good crowds for big games at the bar. Where I am, it's very european watching the games, definitely more Europeans in the city than the burbs though.

wasn't meant to be a knock on anybody....i just think you take the hispanic population away and your crowds go down in a lot of markets...or maybe not...when you look at Columubs.

81

FenwayFaithful wrote:

More attended than NASCAR? I find that hard to believe.

i didn't see that number....but if they are looking at avg attendance per event, nascar kills just about everything....alot of those tracks are in the 100K+ capacity.

The Juggler

81 wrote:

FenwayFaithful wrote:

More attended than NASCAR? I find that hard to believe.

i didn't see that number....but if they are looking at avg attendance per event, nascar kills just about everything....alot of those tracks are in the 100K+ capacity.

nascar sucks.

this was in reference to team sports i believe.

SatansFuton

I'm not sure about those numbers, just because the story says "according to" and then names some website I'm not familiar with. It might be true, the way they put it, but they also put a lot of conditions on sporting events in order to shoehorn soccer to the top 3. And attendance does not necessarily mean popularity, as the NBA (and NHL for that matter) play in smaller venues than soccer. A sell-out in the average basketball/hockey venue is 20,000. I bet if you look at the TV ratings, the NBA probably beats out MLS.

Another thing, this just mentions professional sports leagues. It is worth mentioning that NCAA Football averages way more spectators than soccer in the U.S. in average crowd size per game. 45,000 to be exact.

FenwayFaithful

Oh, I dont actually consider NASCAR a sport. But many people do, so its worth asking.

brother123

Still number one in my book

soccer (football) is so boring

markymark550

I'm guessing that this is just for professional sports? If you include college games, there's no way soccer draws more than basketball in raw attendance (maybe attendance per game).

Still, it's about the fourth or fifth most popular sport. In the sports world, there's nothing worse than watching a soccer match. I'd rather watch grass grow...

The Juggler

SatansFuton wrote:

I'm not sure about those numbers, just because the story says "according to" and then names some website I'm not familiar with. It might be true, the way they put it, but they also put a lot of conditions on sporting events in order to shoehorn soccer to the top 3. And attendance does not necessarily mean popularity, as the NBA (and NHL for that matter) play in smaller venues than soccer. A sell-out in the average basketball/hockey venue is 20,000. I bet if you look at the TV ratings, the NBA probably beats out MLS.

Another thing, this just mentions professional sports leagues. It is worth mentioning that NCAA Football averages way more spectators than soccer in the U.S. in average crowd size per game. 45,000 to be exact.

pro sports. and i said in my original post that this doesn't include tv ratings and stuff. soccer is not more popular than those sports mentioned. however i bet it is closing in on hockey.

this is just referencing average attendance in pro sports. mls has a higher average than the nhl and the nba right now. that's the only point of the article. the numbers are available for anyone to see. i think this is a pretty significant step for soccer in this country.

SatansFuton

In overall popularity and TV ratings (just in professional team sports) soccer is still 5 out of 5. Last years MLS Cup drew an estimated 750,000 viewers in the United States. That's about the same as the average NHL regular season game on Versus. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals averaged about 8 million viewers, but topped out at over 9 million at the peak of viewership. 15 million watched last years (even more this year) World Series deciding game, 23 million watched the Mavericks win game 6 of the NBA Finals, and you don't even want to know the Super Bowl figures. OK, it was 111 million.

So to recap last seasons championship game ratings

Super Bowl - 111,000,000
NBA Finals - 23,000,000
World Series (Rangers Giants) - 15,000,000
Stanley Cup Game 7 - 9,000,000
MLS Cup - 750,000

Also, all the revenue numbers for the other sports are billions higher than MLS. NFL is the highest with 9 billion. The NHL rounds out the top 4 with 2.9 billion. MLS makes 280 million in the 5th spot.

The Juggler

SatansFuton wrote:

In overall popularity and TV ratings (just in professional team sports) soccer is still 5 out of 5. Last years MLS Cup drew an estimated 750,000 viewers in the United States. That's about the same as the average NHL regular season game on Versus. Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals averaged about 8 million viewers, but topped out at over 9 million at the peak of viewership. 15 million watched last years (even more this year) World Series deciding game, 23 million watched the Mavericks win game 6 of the NBA Finals, and you don't even want to know the Super Bowl figures. OK, it was 111 million.

So to recap last seasons championship game ratings

Super Bowl - 111,000,000
NBA Finals - 23,000,000
World Series (Rangers Giants) - 15,000,000
Stanley Cup Game 7 - 9,000,000
MLS Cup - 750,000

Also, all the revenue numbers for the other sports are billions higher than MLS. NFL is the highest with 9 billion. The NHL rounds out the top 4 with 2.9 billion. MLS makes 280 million in the 5th spot.

right. and the mls is 3rd in average attendance behind the nfl and mlb.

mickeyrat

For youth sports , you'll find more soccer fields than any other. It continues to grow in interest.

Wobbie

I only watch it to see the ridiculous floppers.

SatansFuton

The Juggler wrote:

right. and the mls is 3rd in average attendance behind the nfl and mlb.

I've been to a few MLS games (on account of a friend who is a soccer nut), a majority of the crowd are kids soccer coaches with their entire teams (most of whom look completely un-interested) because MLS practically gives tickets away (at least around here) because there's no demand for them. I can go to an FC Dallas game for cheaper than it costs to see a movie. And there were nowhere near 17 thousand people at any game I went to. I've been to high school football games with bigger crowds. I think average attendance ranking is a pretty useless way to rank sports when 2 of the top 4 sports in popularity play in venues that are intentionally smaller. You could say that an MLS game draws more people than a Pearl Jam concert at Madison Square Garden, that just means it is all that MSG will hold.

If you look at overall attendance, MLS is 15 and 16 million less than the NHL and NBA respectively. Those leagues play more games, but that also counts to the lower average attendance as they are marathon seasons. Well, so is MLB for that matter. But with an average attendance of around 17 thousand people for game, the NBA and NHL are really only 1-2 thousand people shy of selling out most arenas every night, in a season 3 times longer than the MLS season. And these are people paying a significantly higher ticket price.