Might be the last one for a while, but here’s the latest list of attendance figures for the prominent leagues (if a team’s not listed, either they haven’t had a home game yet or I have no figures for them).

All the leagues are up and running now, so here’s a look at where the crowds are going in the prominent soccer leagues in the US and Canada as of yesterday’s games:

I’m going to guess anyone who’s ever coached youth soccer can relate to this video. And it’s probably not exclusive to soccer, either.

Despite the delayed release of Major League Soccer’s 2011 schedule (and the attendant kvetching about it), more than half of the league’s teams have increased announced attendance over the same number of home games as a year ago.

FC Dallas leads the way, averaging 14,258 after a 10,448 average through six home games in 2010 (a 36.5% bump), while the LA Galaxy’s 26.3% rise (from 19,397 to 24,496) is second best and one of four double-digit increases.

A handful of teams are seeing modest or virtually no increase, (Seattle couldn’t have sold too many more tickets), and only Philadelphia and Columbus are experiencing major drop-offs. The Union’s 20% drop is more because they had to open last season with two games at the much larger Lincoln Financial Field than any proven drop in interest. The Crew’s 28% drop is, obviously, troubling.

Here’s the chart, with teams ranked by their percentage increase in average announced attendance when comparing this year to the same number of home games from a year ago.

Note that Kansas City has yet to play a home game in 2011 while they await the opening of LIVESTRONG Sporting Park, and that Portland and Vancouver weren’t in the league last year. Lastly, the league total is for the first 86 games a year ago, regardless of which teams were involved in them, so it’s not a perfect comparison.

Dallas has already announced two sellout crowds, their home opener against Chicago and the visit from the Galaxy (which was marred by a weather delay). If you saw either game, you know there were nothing like 20,000 people at either game, but if the Dallas front office sold the tickets, good for them.

If you’re really a wonk, or just want to know more about how tickets actually get sold in this league, read this piece in The Shin Guardian, which features perspective from ticket sales directors for three MLS teams. It’s an interesting look at the experiences of the people who have to actually work to move tickets, unlike the experiences of those in NFL or major college football ticket departments who have a lot easier time. (Incidentally, I thought the comment from Chicago’s guy that their paid attendance is up 19% through four games to be very interesting, given their announced attendance over the same time period is down five percent. Either they gave away a bunch of tickets last year or there’s something going on we’re not aware of.)

The latest twist in the long, tortured history of professional indoor soccer in North America came today when United Soccer Leagues announced an agreement to operate the Major Indoor Soccer League beginning this season.

As I read the release, it seems as though the name of the league isn’t going to change (for once), but that its operations are going to be brought under the auspices of the USL offices in Tampa. Chris Economides (who used to run the USL’s Rochester Rhinos, but also has indoor experience as a former GM with the Kansas City Attack), will “lead” the league, which apparently means MISL Commissioner Dave Grimaldi is out of a job. That’s a shame. Dave’s truly an “indoor guy” and a guy who really cares deeply about this crazy sport. Hopefully there’s a place for him somewhere in the game if he chooses to stay in it.

Anyway, the four remaining MISL teams (Baltimore, Milwaukee, Missouri and Wichita – Chicago is apparently out for now and Omaha has jumped to the PASL-Pro) will join the three markets (Rochester, Syracuse and Norfolk) previously announced as being part of the USL’s new I-League (which was having trouble getting off the ground) for a circuit of “at least seven teams” for 2011-2012. You’d hope there’d be a few more teams, but I don’t know exactly where they’re going to get them (there have been rumors of teams in Detroit and Minneapolis, but I wish I had a dollar for ever rumored indoor soccer expansion team since I’ve been paying attention).

If you notice, four of those seven teams are brand new and another (Missouri) has played exactly one season to this point. Baltimore and Milwaukee are the two longest-running indoor teams we have, but they’ve been surrounded in recent years by a cast of however many clubs whoever was running the show could conjure up to replace the two that just folded. I hope this move is the beginning of a stabilization of the indoor game, but I’ve been at this long enough to know that won’t be easy.

EDIT: This story out of Milwaukee quotes Wave coach Keith Tozer as saying this move “ensures that there is no overlap of playing seasons between outdoor and indoor.” That means the indoor season will have to end sometime in March and not bleed over into April (when most leagues below MLS traditionally open).

The 43rd annual USA Team Handball National Club Championships get going in the morning at the Salt Palace in Salt Lake City, Utah. For the third straight year, I’ll be broadcasting the men’s and women’s finals in the Elite Division on Sunday. You can catch the action at www.usateamhandball.org. The women’s final is at 1pm MT/4pm ET and the men’s final is at 3pm MT/5pm ET.

If you haven’t seen team handball before (not a surprise, there aren’t many opportunities), it’s a ton of fun when played well – a little like basketball, a little like indoor soccer, a little like water polo without the water. The best club teams in the country will be trying to knock off defending champ Los Angeles Team Handball Club in the men’s division, while the women’s division is wide open with defending champ Houston not returning to the tournament. Chicago Inter, which had won back-to-back titles before falling in last year’s women’s final, could return to the top spot, but not without a battle from the other teams in the draw.

You have to read this piece by Brian Phillips on The Run of Play. I don’t know who Mr. Phillips is, but he nails it.

Key passage:

“…soccer has devolved into a realm a little like politics, a realm where fans’ access to preconceived explanations that suit their emotional allegiances is drowning reality out of the discourse.”

That’s been the case for probably 10 years or so, and if you want to see it in action, visit the US Men’s National Team forum of Bigsoccer.com sometime. Or most any forum over there, to be honest.

Phillips is also correct – and I’ve only come to this realization fairly recently – when he says “the truth about hyperpartisanship is that it is an absolutely miserable and unpleasant way to be a sports fan.” Where once I used to get really pissed off if one of my teams lost, now I’m more prone to let it go fairly quickly – especially if there’s something really important, like dinner, to distract me (to be honest, I still haven’t worked this all the way through when it comes to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers or the Florida Gators).

Don’t be angry about the things you love. Love them until – and this part is inevitable – you die. But instead of dying a bitter, twisted person, you can die having enjoyed something, rather than having wrung the very life out of it because of some insane need to live vicariously through the fortunes of 25 to 53 people you’ll never meet in your life.

Here’s an awesome video find: highlights of an (original) MISL broadcast from January 1985 as the Cleveland Force take on the Pittsburgh Spirit. Not everyone knows that the dean of American soccer broadcasters, my man JP Dellacamera, got his start with the Spirit. Check out the first half of play and the halftime with highlights and features and enjoy a trip back to the mid-1980s.

Thanks to those of you who pointed out some typos and transpositions in last week’s tables. Here’s the latest offering, through games of yesterday:

NOTES:

• Now every team in the NASL has had at least one home game. The real surprise is Ft. Lauderdale, where, if they can keep up the type of boost their rebranding has apparently played a part in, they might be the flagship franchise. The others are about what you’d expect. Montreal is going to lead the league. I don’t know why people are crowing about Atlanta drawing at least 3k to their first three games – that’s better than Atlanta got before their hiatus, but it’s still below the historical average for Division II (3,434 from 1994-2010). And the Silverbacks are being outdrawn by the WPS team that plays 27 miles away. Edmonton drew 2,631 to their home league opener at 3,500-seat Foote Field, but their 5-0 defeat won’t help them sell tickets going forward. And Tampa Bay’s average attendance is off 41 percent from a year ago when they were playing on the other side of the Bay. Which is odd, because I was assured they’d be huge in St. Petersburg and sell out every game.
• Speaking of the NASL, now that every team has had a home game, we can look at something I’m trying out: projecting the league attendance based on the number of remaining home games for each club and their projected totals. Basically, it asks the question, “if every team in the league keeps its current average for the remainder of its home games, what would the league attendance be?” As different teams have different numbers of games left at any given point in the season, it’s a way to look at where we are and how outlier teams like Montreal can impact the sample. The NASL projects out to a total of 397,474, an average of 3,312. Which would be the lowest for a DII league since 2002. I’ll keep an eye on this as the season goes along and project for the other leagues once everybody has a home game.
• Despite what you might have heard somewhere, D3 numbers aren’t particularly harder to come by this year than in previous years. The only missing games are from the Caribbean teams, which comes as no surprise to anyone who understands that, infrastructurally, those teams are going to be behind the times. Charleston continues to draw well (4,079 this weekend), showing there are places where the level of play is less important than just having an established team. FC New York, which many (including me) doubted would ever play a game, announced 2,011 (could have been a deliberately made-up number) for its home opener. Wilmington drew 2,984 for its second home game. And Los Angeles drew 696 for its home debut. Obviously, that’s a tough market.
• WPS had a rough weekend, with the new Western New York Flash drawing just 2,164 for its home inaugural in Rochester. It’s time for us now to admit that Marta, as great as she is, does not resonate. She does not sell tickets. It’s not happening. And magicJack drew just 1,008 (The Sun-Sentinel’s Jeff Rusnak said the actual crowd was about half that, right after he was denied the opportunity to interview players and coaches). More on magicJack later, but that’s not a good sign. At all.
• MLS passed the one million mark in attendance for the season as of the Columbus game Saturday (which drew just 11,298 to Crew Stadium – Massive Club, right?) and is averaging 17,639. Final numbers for April show an average of 16,858 – down quite a bit from March’s 19,225. Still, the league is going to draw over four million when all is said and done.
• Dallas announced a season-high 21,867 for its rain-interrupted match against the Galaxy last night. It’s the Hoops’ second announced crowd over 20k for the season, and in neither case did they have anything like 20k in the building.
• And here’s an interesting note from the PDL, which began its season with two games this past weekend (not enough to do a chart on): the Fresno Fuego, which has been near the top of the PDL attendance standings in recent years, will charge no admission price for its tickets this season. A sponsor is picking up the cost, meaning the club is getting something out of the deal. You used to see this done on an occasional basis throughout a minor-league baseball season, but I’ve never heard of a team doing it for an entire season (though it’s only eight games). The Fuego announced a crowd of 7,853 for a 0-0 draw against LA Blues 23. Overall, I’m not a fan of this strategy, because sponsors come and go. People who care about your team should care enough to pay to watch it play. I think they’re conditioning their market to pay nothing for their tickets. We’ll see how it plays out.