Photo credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports
Minnesota United attendances continue to disappoint for an expansion team.
After an inaugural match with 35,043 fans in attendance, their subsequent four home games have all drawn in the 17,000’s. For the 2017 season, after five home games, Minnesota is averaging 21,115 fans per game. But with attendances such as the 17,709 number for the game against Sporting KC this past weekend, the average will continue to decline unless the club can get a boost through the gates.
For this past weekend, despite strong reported attendances in Seattle, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and other cities, the reported turnouts in Colorado, Columbus and DC brought the average for the week down to approximately 20,500.
After the first 103 matches, the average attendance is virtually equal to 2016.
Here are the reported attendances for MLS gameweek 10:
| Franchise | Attendance |
|---|---|
| Colorado | 13,745 |
| Columbus | 13,340 |
| DC United | 14,993 |
| Houston | 19,292 |
| Kansas City | 18,965 |
| Los Angeles | 24,256 |
| Minnesota | 17,709 |
| NYCFC | 25,605 |
| Philadelphia | 16,297 |
| Salt Lake | 18,160 |
| San Jose | 18,000 |
| Seattle | 41,468 |
| Toronto | 25,200 |
Here is the 2017 MLS attendance report through gameweek 10:
| MLS Attendance – Equal # of Home Games | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2017 | |||
| Att | Att | Att +/- | GP | |
| Atlanta | NA | 49,077 | NA | 3 |
| Seattle | 39,716 | 42,620 | 7.31% | 4 |
| Toronto | 28,262 | 26,475 | -6.32% | 5 |
| Orlando | 37,523 | 25,527 | -31.97% | 5 |
| Montreal | 23,466 | 23,705 | 1.02% | 3 |
| LA Galaxy | 25,212 | 22,965 | -8.91% | 6 |
| NYCFC | 24,924 | 22,183 | -11.00% | 5 |
| Vancouver | 23,350 | 21,681 | -7.15% | 4 |
| Portland | 21,144 | 21,144 | 0.00% | 5 |
| Minnesota | NA | 21,115 | NA | 5 |
| Red Bulls | 18,828 | 19,703 | 4.65% | 5 |
| Sporting KC | 19,839 | 19,052 | -3.97% | 5 |
| Salt Lake | 19,699 | 18,808 | -4.52% | 5 |
| San Jose | 18,000 | 18,000 | 0.00% | 5 |
| Houston | 20,458 | 17,916 | -12.43% | 6 |
| D.C. United | 15,173 | 16,141 | 6.38% | 5 |
| Philadelphia Union | 16,956 | 16,038 | -5.42% | 5 |
| FC Dallas | 13,828 | 15,906 | 15.03% | 4 |
| Chicago | 14,239 | 15,369 | 7.94% | 4 |
| Colorado | 14,053 | 14,743 | 4.91% | 4 |
| Columbus | 15,908 | 13,552 | -14.81% | 6 |
| NE Revs | 13,758 | 13,344 | -3.01% | 4 |
What’s the excuse Minnesota? I believe someone on here the past week was blaming bad weather, holy week and kids being out on spring break. Keep on expanding Mr. Garber the end is near.
Stadium is one off the common excuses I’ve read, I’m sure people have more, the games are either held on Weekdays or Weekends, either to early or to late, games occur when other sports league are in season or when other sports league are not in season. It’s Univisions or ESPN or Fox fault, it’s a Euro Snob Conspiracy, it’s during the school year and in a few weeks school will be out of session so that will be the reason, matches are to late or early for some, everyone is watching on a streaming device that can’t rated so we’re all fooled.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA the end is no where near!!! Holy hell you are a whack job. “Mom the meatloaf!!!”
Bad tv ratings, bad attendance figures and clueless fans.
What about the clueless pro/rel bots locked in moms basement? I bet you are useful in life.
Locked in mom’s basement? Sir, I CHOOSE to be in my mom’s basement.
Besides your tired attacks, can you explain the drop in attendance from the inaugural match? Why did over 50% decide not to attend again?
Still better than Dallas.
*Frisco
What’s the stadium situation for Minnesota? Aren’t they playing at a fake turf abomination, while waiting for a real stadium to be built?
At least they are not the worst team in the universe as they picked a couple of victories here and there. It’s the beauty of MLS, no matter how bad your team is, there are always even more awful teams out there.
I caught yet another delusional Lalas rant at halftime yesterday, about how awesome the parity is in MLS, that it makes the league unpredictable, bla-h, bla-h…so, by his logic, we should all cheer that all teams in MLS are equally mediocre/awful, and that’s awesome…who needs La Liga with its behemoths, Real and Barca…that’s boring-we all need more of Minnesota v. KC “spectacles”, right?
Does Lalas occupy an official ministry of propaganda position in MLS? Does he get paid by Gerber? Does it hold true that if you repeat a lie a thousand times(that a generally mediocre level of play in MLS is in fact great), it becomes truth?
Yes I’,m pretty sure yes he does occupy that position, also if you mention him or Twellman the MLS bots across the web are summoned so they should be arriving shortly.
Ivan, Don Garber said the same thing a few years ago. I believe he said MLS is more competitive than the Premier League. Apparently Garber and Lalas believe watching two awful teams is exciting.
San Jose attendance was more like 14k. I was there.
Oh and before someone says the 18k is tickets sold, they did not sell 18k and they never do. You can go on ticketmaster 10 minutes before the game and find hundreds of unsold seats.
Attendances for MLS games are on par with EFL Championship games. Many European top tier leagues can only dream of some of the attendances MLS teams are getting.
I get the focus on attendance but come on that’s not a bad number. You people look at EPL and are like “see I told you”. Outside the NFL in the US there are plenty of teams in every major sport who do not fill their stadiums up to capacity on a regular basis. Even in the NFL which is the far and away biggest and most popular sport in this country there are still teams with seats open and those are only eight games at home. I cant believe this is so black and white but I am sure the league is going to fold now!
Almost 18k is a good number for a city who has a NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB, WNBA, Big Ten, Indie baseball and MLS team. It’s why the club is building a 20k stadium.
You aren’t concerned that the opening match attracted 35,000 people and nosed dived the following weeks?! This is a brand new team and this is your excuse?!
Stop calling it a club, per Don Garber MLS doesnt have any, they are franchises.
As long as you’ve got a couple of hundred million bucks to put in Garber’s pocket, you can join his cartel. No matter of your football pitch is only 60yds wide or made of recycled rubber. Props to Orlando though, they seem to have done things the right way