MLS attendance report: Nov. 8, 2010

The playoff numbers look like this…

5 year comparison
Conference Semifinals – 2nd Leg
Avg	+/-	Home Teams
2006	15,938	NA	New England	Dallas	Houston	DC United
2007	19,838	24.47%	New England	Chivas USA	Houston	DC United
2008	19,444	-1.99%	Chicago	Columbus	Houston	Chivas USA
2009	21,526	10.71%	Chicago	Columbus	Houston	Los Angeles
2010	19,871	-7.69%	Salt Lake	Columbus	New York	Los Angeles
Quarterfinals Totals(both legs)
Avg	+/-	Teams
2006	12,736	NA	CHI, COL, DAL, DCU, LA, NE, RBNY, SJ
2007	17,041	33.81%	CHI, COL, CHV, DAL, DCU, HOU, NE, RBNY
2008	14,960	-12.22%	CHI, CHV, DAL, DCU, HOU, KC, NE, RBNY
2009	20,755	38.74%	CHI, CHV, CLB, HOU, KC, NE, RSL, SEA
2010	18,551	-10.62%	CLB, COL, DAL, LA, RBNY, RSL, SJ, SEA

Observations

More than 22,800 bought tickets for the Red Bulls/San Jose match. Looked like some didn’t make it to the arena on a damp and chilly Thursday evening. A terrible crowd of under 10,300 on a sunny Saturday in Columbus. A great crowd in Salt Lake, over 19,300. Los Angeles held up its end as their sellout made the LA/Seattle quarterfinal the only one that sold out both legs.

Colorado and Columbus

The Rapids have played 12 home playoff matches. Average attendance: 9,968. Games with under 10,000 in attendance: 7.
Columbus has played 14 home playoff matches. Average attendance: 13,413. Games with under 10,000 in attendance: 2.

Playoff Games – 2nd Leg

RBNY	1	Red Bulls Reader	22,839
San Jose	3	San Jose Center Line Soccer	22,839
San Jose advances – 3-2 aggregate
Columbus	2	Columbus Dispatch – Crew XTra	10,322
Colorado	1	Undercurrent	10,322
Colorado advances – 2-2 aggregate 5-4 PK’s
Real Salt Lake	1	RSL – Behind the Shield	19,324
FC Dallas	1	3rd Degree – Buzz Carrick	19,324
FC Dallas advances – 3-2 aggregate
Los Angeles	2	LA – Official Blog	27,000
Seattle	1	Seattle Times	27,000
Los Angeles advances – 3-1 aggregate

MLS Cup Semifinals

Colorado v San Jose – Sat Nov 13
Los Angeles v FC Dallas – Sun Nov 14

MLS Throw Ins

I presume that most of you are aware of the bombardment of bits being written, tweeted and otherwise disseminated about the state of the playoff system in MLS. Much of this crap has taken the form of something like, “The playoffs are a joke”, “Two western teams in the Eastern Conference final”, “We must have a single table”. You get the idea. Even our own Daniel Feuerstein, has chimed in.

I got so tired of seeing this drivel pass my eyes reading #MLS tweets(@SoccerTwit), I simply had to mention it in this post. For I’m sure we’ll see tons more as the week passes leading up to the Colorado/San Jose semifinal, and it’s going to make me even more baffled at the lack of understanding by most of the people spewing out the garbage.

First, as Daniel points out, the SoccerDon(Garber) has already stated that conferences will remain in MLS. Maybe 2, maybe 3, but no single table. And before I have to plug my ears to drown out the cries of Eurosnobs, I would ask… Did the top eight teams make the playoffs? Answer, yes they did.

Will it make it better if we call the first round the quarterfinals, followed by the semifinals? That’s what they are. Simple solution. Rename the conferences. Hunt and Kraft, Yin and Yang, Black and White, anything that doesn’t relate to geography. Feel better?

Next, and I’ll bet this will happen, seed the playoffs as we’d all like to see them, i.e.; 1 v 8, 2 v 7, etc. Problem solved with one caveat. I can see the top conference finishers getting the top two seeds, with everyone else seeded 3-8. Just a thought.

If you are interested in reading a few playoff suggestions worthy of your consideration, try Brian Straus’ idea which includes a group play scenario, or Beau Dure’s tweak of the Australian Rules Football Playoff system.

In the meantime, enjoy the playoffs. They’ve been fantastic.

And …

After suffering what some are calling the biggest upset in women’s soccer history, the US Women still have a chance to qualify for the Women’s World Cup.