What happened to MLS attendances this past week? For the eight matches played this past week, attendances were as follows: 8,096, 20,038, 8,309, 9,627, 11,564, 13,193 and 20,426 — an average of 12,248. Okay, so Toronto hasn’t played a home match yet, but still, 12,000 is well below last season’s average of 16,770.
In a separate report, The Kansas City Star compares the MLS average to other professional leagues in the U.S. and Europe, and finds that it rather holds its own. In Europe, the top three leagues in terms of average attendance are Germany’s Bundesliga (37,644), England’s Premiership (34,459), and Spain’s La Liga (28,838). In the U.S., the top four are the NFL (67,738), Major League Baseball (32,785), the NBA (17,757) and yep, MLS (16,770). Hockey’s NHL came fifth, with an average of 16,486.
However, compared to other top-flight soccer leagues around the world, MLS came 11th. That may sound unimpressive, but Jeff L’Hote, who owns his own soccer-focused consultancy, points out that “MLS has been around about a dozen years, whereas you take the leagues that are ahead of them around the world, they’ve been around for 100 years in at least a couple of cases, and decades in every other case. There’s certainly room for improvement. But I think the trends are promising. Not just last year’s league attendance, but also the continuing development of stadia.”