New conceptual plan to redevelop area around McMahon Stadium

[jayswin]

Free tickets distributed to actual fans or companies to give to fans = legit, and you can call it a strategy to get people out and have a full, fun atmosphere

Tickets distributed on paper only = cooking the books to look better or qualify for certain subsidies for being above an attendance threshold

Most teams do the latter.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by jayswin

The important distinction isn't so much butts in seats, it's tickets sold vs tickets distributed. The Tampa Bay Lightening used to announce attendance of 17-20k every night but were being paid for like 12-15k. But they actually had 17-20k butts in seats.

Their strategy was to get more people out who would become future fans and season ticket holders, and I like that strategy. It's also worked for them. But many teams just cook their numbers by "distributing" tickets to announce higher attendance numbers.

Colorado was famous for this in the NHL. They had the longest (or one of) active sell out streak until media and fans called them out for blocks of hundreds of empty seats in multiple sections every night. They claimed tickets distributed were 100% of capacity, but once they knew the jig was up they suddenly announced much less and ended their sell out streak.

Many teams do this to an extent, though, and I believe the Flames do, as our sellout streak went on for years in the 2010's when any regular attendee would tell you it's not even close.

They were also doing that to game the NHL's Revenue Sharing system because the Lighting are filthy cheaters.

Granted, I think I recall that Arizona did the same for quite a while.

[powderjunkie]

Originally Posted by timun

Relative shmelative. Actual, raw numbers:

Atlanta United FC 52,510
Seattle Sounders 40,247
Saskatchewan Roughriders 30,723
Edmonton Eskimos 29,341
FC Cincinnati 27,336
Calgary Stampeders 27,027
Winnipeg Blue Bombers 25,414
Portland Timbers 25,218
Toronto FC 25,048
Hamilton Tiger-Cats 23,271
LA Galaxy 23,205
Orlando City SC 22,761
Ottawa Redblacks 22,605
LAFC 22,251
NYC FC 21,107
Minnesota United 19,723
Vancouver Whitecaps 19,514
San Jose Earthquakes 18,781
Sporting KC 18,601
Real Salt Lake 18,121
BC Lions 17,803
D.C. United 17,744
Montreal Alouettes 17,574
New York Red Bulls 17,281
Philadelphia Union 17,111
NE Revolution 16,737
Montreal Impact 16,171
Houston Dynamo 15,674
Columbus Crew 14,856
FC Dallas 14,842
Colorado Rapids 14,284
Toronto Argonauts 12,493
Chicago Fire 12,324


If New York City can't even scrape together enough people to outdraw Stampeders games MLS is frankly not a factor.

I don't know much about MLS, but it looks like their season is 34 games matches, so presumably 17 at home.

It looks like there are 2 teams in NYC area. One plays in Yankee Stadium (probably fine, but not optimal for soccer), the other in 25k stadium in Jersey.

Philly and Chicago drawing low is more interesting to me, and those SEA and ATL numbers are crazy.