Latest attendance numbers for MLS, the NASL, USL Pro and the NWSL, through games of May 19:

• MLS should hit the 2 million mark in total attendance next Sunday, just slightly behind the pace set last year when the league drew six million fans for the first time ever.
• Chivas USA sits at an announced average of 8,059 after last night’s intimate gathering of 8,125 for its match against Real Salt Lake. I don’t know that the Goats can catch the all-time MLS low of 7,460 per game set by the Miami Fusion in 2000 or Dallas’ 7,906 at Dragon Stadium in 2003, but they’ll probably be only the fourth team in the last ten years to go sub-10k for the season (Dallas 2004, Kansas City 2005, San Jose 2010).
• Most NASL teams are up year-over-year, with only Edmonton (down 29%, but with a finally-expanded stadium available to them) and San Antonio down over the same number of home games from 2012. Just as happened in 2012, San Antonio’s numbers have gone down each game after their opener (though they’re now in a smaller stadium that they control, so they’re very likely better off financially).
• Missing attendance figures are prevalent in USL Pro, so what we can divine from the DIII numbers isn’t as robust as it might otherwise be. MLS’ Seattle Sounders, who are considering putting a future USL Pro team in a suburban location rather than align with an existing team, did draw 2,174 for their reserve team’s match with Orlando on Mother’s Day.
• Portland continues to set the pace in the National Women’s Soccer League, averaging 13,336 after three home matches (which would be the highest average for a women’s pro team since the WUSA’s Washington Freedom averaged 14,421 in 2001). Thanks to the Thorns, the NWSL’s current average (4,366) is ahead of the overall three-year WPS average (3,930), though three current teams are averaging below 2,000 a game. No WUSA team averaged under 4,249 for a season, and the WPS low for a season was magicJack’s 2,033 in 2011. Sky Blue FC’s announced crowd of 688 on May 8 is the smallest in the history of any of the three leagues, smaller than the announced 864 for a WPS match between Atlanta and magicJack on May 28, 2011 in Boca Raton, Florida.

The alternate timeline device in 2009′s reboot of the Star Trek franchise gave director J.J. Abrams license to take the series anywhere he wanted.

Unfortunately, he apparently wanted to take it to 1982.

(Spoiler alert – you might not want to go past the jump if you haven’t seen this one yet.)

Read the rest of this entry »

I love this moment, where a(n alleged) Cosmos fan shows he needs to brush up on current events. (H/T to Nico, originally happened here.)

I have an article published in this month’s issue of Stadium Journey magazine (though I didn’t write about stadiums, oddly enough). Thanks to a recommendation from my man Josh Hakala (whose excellent TheCup.us you should visit, especially this time of year), they asked me to write about the pros and cons of promotion and relegation (a topic I may have mentioned before) for their all-soccer issue.

I didn’t write it as prole bait, but I figure it’s going to end up drawing out the batshit crazy brigade. As you know (unless you’re one of the batshit crazy brigade), I’m not personally opposed to the concept – I just don’t think it’s realistic in America now, and maybe not ever. But despite presenting what I think is a balanced look at the advantages and drawbacks of such a system, I fear the “hostile media effect” is going to be in play here and the proles are going to be sure my bias is showing through. Which ( a ) would be nothing new and ( b ) comes with the territory, I guess.

But if they read it, it probably means they bought it, so that’s good. The magazine itself is a good read for anyone who likes to visit stadiums and have sports experiences around the country, so I encourage you to visit them and buy the print or electronic versions of the May issue.

Now that every professional (men’s and women’s) team in MLS, the NASL, USL Pro and the NWSL has had at least one home match, we can take a look at the attendance figures for each team in the various leagues through games of May 5. (As always, corrections are welcome.)

NOTES:

• MLS, which drew six million fans for the first time ever in 2012, is on pace to do slightly below that (if every team holds its average for the rest of the season), but at 17,272 and playing to about 83% capacity, its numbers are healthier than ever overall. There are still trouble spots (Chivas USA, obviously, but to a lesser extent, Colorado, Columbus and Chicago), but the bright spots are very, very bright.
• Starting the MLS season earlier than ever may be something they want to re-think (if it’s mathematically possible, given all the constraints). This year’s March average (17,803) was well off last year’s record 20,783 and below 2011 (19,225) and 2010 (17,992). The season began on March 2 this year, a week earlier than last year and almost two weeks earlier than the year before. I don’t know if there’s a strong correlation (I’d have to delve deeper into it) but those are the numbers. (Incidentally, the April numbers were right about in line with the last few years.)
• Things are looking up in the early going in the Division II North American Soccer League, with strong showings in Minnesota (though not quite as strong as they wanted), the newly-rebranded United FC is 25% ahead of the former Stars’ numbers from a year ago, when they opened at the Metrodome and then moved back outdoors. They’re playing all but one of their Spring Championship matches indoors this time around.
• In fact, every NASL team but Edmonton (where new stands are finally being constructed at Clarke Stadium) and San Antonio is up year-over-year and the league itself is up about 5%. (In the Scorpions’ case, they couldn’t match last year’s numbers no matter what, as their lovely new yard has a much smaller capacity than the high school football stadium the team played in last year.)
• Orlando continues to set the pace in USL Pro (though their MLS chances took a hit late last week). The Lions drew club regular-season records of 9,140 on April 19 and then 9,589 eight days later (and had bad weather kibosh what could have been a couple of other great crowds). While mainstays Charleston, Richmond and Wilmington will be fine, there are troubling signs in Los Angeles (as usual) and Tampa Bay, while Phoenix has lost half its audience (and its club president) in its first month of play.
• Incidentally, the league numbers you will see for USL Pro throughout this season will include the “crossover” games against MLS Reserve League teams. There have been three so far, with Salt Lake drawing a high of 8,263 for their game against Phoenix, Portland getting 1,803 for VSI Tampa Bay and Colorado getting 307 for Harrisburg’s visit. Without the MLS Reserves, the USL Pro average is 2,614 at the moment.
• The latest attempt at women’s pro soccer, the NWSL, is 14 games in and Portland, Washington and Kansas City have drawn healthy (in Portland’s case, super-healthy) crowds. Boston’s off its former league-leading pace, but the big disappointment was Seattle, which drew just 2,618 for its inaugural against Sky Blue FC Saturday night. The Sounders Women (a different club altogether) led the W-League in attendance last year thanks in part to a star-studded roster, but the Reign is finding the going a bit tougher so far. Saturday will be Western New York’s first Saturday home game with Abby Wambach in the lineup, so we’ll see what happens there.
• And, in case you’re wondering, the PDL season began over the weekend, with the Victoria Highlanders drawing 1,804 for their home opener, a 3-0 win over Kitsap. But LA Misioneros reported 100 for their match against Fresno and the awkwardly-named OC Blues Strikers FC (the former Pali Blues) drew 40 for its opener against Ventura County. The W-League season starts this weekend.

Several months back, I wondered what effect the NHL lockout was having on attendance at games in the American Hockey League, whose 30 teams are all affiliates of NHL clubs. Now that the AHL season has ended, we can look at how all 78 minor-league clubs fared at the gate from the time the lockout ended until this past weekend.

You’ll see four columns for each team in the table below. The first is each club’s average home announced attendance as of the last day of the lockout (through games of January 18, 2013). Next is the average home announced attendance for all games from that point until the end of each team’s season. Then there’s the team’s final average announced attendance for the entire season. Finally, the percentage in the fourth column is the difference between the average for games during the lockout and for games after the lockout. Teams are ranked here by how big a “hit” they took (how much their average dropped) when the NHL returned to play. A positive number, obviously, indicates an increase in attendance post-lockout.

Sixty-one of the seventy-eight minor-league hockey teams saw an increase in their average announced attendance once the NHL lockout was over, ranging from the negligible (Rapid City, two people per game) to the profound (Columbus, Greenville and Milwaukee, all up more than 50%). Every league was also up, from the seven percent of the Federal League to the 26 percent of the SPHL.

Some individual markets saw steep declines, including Hamilton (did the return of the Leafs, and their first trip to the playoffs in nine years, make an impact there?), San Francisco (with the Sharks in nearby San Jose), Elmira and Rochester (both near Buffalo) and Bridgeport (the closest minor-league market to New York) all off by 12 to 23 percent.

I wouldn’t attribute all of this to the return of the NHL, and different markets may react very differently. There could be any number of reasons above and beyond the idea that hockey fans felt better about the game once the lockout was over and wanted to consume it at whatever level was closest to them. But you can’t prove from these numbers that the absence of the NHL was better for the minor-league hockey business.

Highmark Stadium in Pittsburgh is one-third of a trio of exciting developments for American soccer that launch this weekend. Two of the three are examples of the sport putting down roots, while the other tries to prove that something can grow on land that’s produced a thin harvest in two previous tries.

The Pittsburgh Riverhounds of USL Pro play their first game at their new, 3,500-seat stadium on the river tomorrow night against Harrisburg. With outstanding views of the city behind it, Highmark Stadium should provide one of the best spectator experiences in the third division (and probably better than some clubs above them provide). The Riverhounds have been around (off and on) since 1999, but will get a good relaunch from a sellout crowd and hope to finally become a part of Pittsburgh’s sporting consciousness.

Meanwhile, the San Antonio Scorpions’ Toyota Field opens tomorrow night when the Tampa Bay Rowdies come to the Alamo City. The 8,000-seat stadium is a little spartan, but has a grass field and looks like a tremendous home for the 2012 NASL attendance-leading Scorpions.

Finally, the third (and maybe final) attempt at a pro women’s soccer league in this country kicks off this weekend as the National Women’s Soccer League stages four games. FC Kansas City hosts Portland Saturday night in the first match in league history, while three other games are Sunday. In Seattle, where a bevy of US Women’s National Teamers helped the Seattle Sounders Women lead the W-League in attendance last summer, the NWSL entry, the Reign, hasn’t seen an outpouring of support just yet.

On the business side, owner Bill Predmore admitted Thursday that he is “disappointed” with season-ticket sales so far, and corporate sponsorships haven’t met expectations.

Elsewhere, the team’s general manager, Amy Carnell, resigned Monday for personal reasons.

“Probably somewhat naively, I thought it was going to be less difficult than it’s proven to be,” Predmore said. “I think I just underestimated the task at hand and really how short a period four months really is.”

While a new business model – where the soccer federations of the US, Canada and Mexico pay the salaries of star players – relieves some of the expense pressure from teams in this new league, the revenue side is still going to be the key. If the NWSL can’t do better at the gate than the WUSA and WPS did, it may find itself in similar straits before long.

I didn’t think Phoenix FC would sell out their home opener, but they had a great crowd on a gorgeous evening and came away with a 1-0 win over VSI Tampa Bay FC on Saturday night.

Sun Devil Soccer Stadium, expanded from just over a thousand seats to somewhere between 2,500 and 3,600, depending on the source, is a terrific venue for USL Pro. Intimate yet not cramped, spartan yet not ramshackle, it feels like it will be a cool place to watch a game (until it’s 113 degrees, at least). And La Furia Roja, the supporters group, kept at least one side of the stadium rocking even when Netinho wasn’t scoring the first goal in club history.

VSI Tampa Bay was playing its first-ever match (it looked like they’d been thrown together at the last minute, and we could have played until Monday morning and I don’t think they would have scored), so Orlando coming to town on Sunday will be a better test of the actual soccer. Phoenix FC’s game operations still need some work (halftime consisted of a kid trying to kick a ball at a t-shirt hung from the crossbar) and they don’t have any visible sponsors, but the stadium and the result were just fine for the first night.

Good job by them, not a great prediction by me. Kudos to everybody involved and let’s see what happens next.

It’s not a big controversy, but I found it slightly interesting that FC Kansas City’s uniforms (the first to be unveiled in the new National Women’s Soccer League) bear the logo of a local boxing club, while Portland Thorns FC had to discontinue selling a t-shirt with the (clever and mildly ribald) slogan, “Feelin’ Thorny?”

The message, of course, is that women can be fighters, but not lovers.

(Yes, yes, I get it: Kansas City isn’t advocating violence, they’re promoting fitness, and the boxing gym’s clientele is supposedly 75% female, so it’s not a inappropriate shirt sponsor at all. I just thought the kerfuffle over the Portland t-shirt was overblown and shows how a small group of people can get honked off over something innocuous and halt the whole enterprise.)

The conditions surrounding last night’s CONCACAF World Cup qualifier between the United States and Costa Rica were virtually unprecedented.

Oh, it snowed a lot, too.

The exemplar of many US fans’ winter of discontent as spring sprang was this Sporting News article revealing widespread player disenchantment with coach Jurgen Klinsmann‘s methods. (Only a cynic would point out that such a story could have been written any time in the six weeks between qualifiers, but was curiously or methodically timed for maximum page views and promotion of angst.)

Some 22 persons connected to the US team (including “11 current players”) are quoted anonymously in the 5,262-word story. (By the way, if you’ve never done so, you should check out the generally-accepted guidelines for why and how journalists should use anonymous sources. I’m not sayin’, I’m just sayin’.) Many question Klinsmann’s training routine, player selection and strategic approach, saying he lacks tactical acumen and his constant lineup changes break cohesion. You know, the complete opposite of the guy who used to coach the team.

Players Who Didn’t Remain Nameless (commonly referred to as “leaders”), including Carlos Bocanegra, Michael Bradley and Herculez Gomez, displayed varying degrees of umbrage. Gomez’s take, that these types of stories prove the game and the team matter to people, is perhaps the most interesting. Call it The Afterbirth of a Soccer Nation, if you will. And it only took a hundred years.

Anyway, there was no real way to discern if the story and the resulting page views rational discussions of it lit a fire under the US team or not (I’m sure most in the crowd of 19,374 would have appreciated one being lit under them), because the Yanks’ 1-0 win was purely about survival. Clint Dempsey (named captain in Bocanegra’s absence) scored the only goal, Brad Guzan (subbing for the injured Tim Howard) made five saves and looked in command, and Bradley and Gomez managed to play in and with the precious snowflakes for 90 minutes.

So less than six months after at least one writer felt the US was in danger of not qualifying for the World Cup (fearmongering being great for page views and all), here they are, second place in the group after two matches, with four home games left. The US’s task is to win all the home games and get one road result – exactly the scenario they faced going into the Hex.

Tuesday’s match at Mexico, while not really a must-win for anybody but José Manuel de la Torre after El Tri’s second straight Hex draw, is nonetheless a chance for the US squad to exorcise some demons. A result – or even a good performance – could change the tenor of the stories that get written in the 10+ weeks until the next qualifier at Jamaica, if not the agendas behind them.