Good News, Salt Lake Real 2nd only to L.A. Galaxy in paid attendance. Still a lot of room for improvement in overall MLS attendance.
At MLS games, announced figures often include large numbers of free tickets plus inflated totals
By Mark Zeigler
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 27, 2006
MLS President Mark Abbott confirmed that the league tracks paid and complimentary tickets but declined to comment “on specific numbers” from the report. However, several current or former league employees verified its authenticity.
It shows that while the 11-year-old league has made strides in several areas – the construction of soccer-specific stadiums, additional sponsors and investors, new national television contracts with ABC/ESPN and Univision – the cornerstone of any pro sports league may be lagging: the number of people actually buying tickets to view the product. Only one team, the Los Angeles Galaxy, had an average paid attendance above 13,000 last season, and six of the 12 teams were below 10,000.
“No league, including ours, is satisfied with the number of people who see (games),” Abbott said in a telephone interview yesterday, “and we're going to work to increase that number. But it's only one small part of the measurement of the league.”
Other findings from the attendance report:
Nearly 600,000 free tickets were distributed last season, or an average of 3,090 per match. The Columbus Crew and Real Salt Lake each gave out more than 9,000 freebies to a single match, and three other clubs handed out 7,000-plus. In one early-season FC Dallas match against Colorado, 1,259 tickets were sold and 7,347 were comps.
On average, announced attendance was 9 percent higher than the total number of tickets distributed and at some games close to 50 percent higher despite MLS' stated policy of using tickets distributed to determine its announced attendance figures.
The L.A. Galaxy easily outdistanced its MLS brethren in ticket sales last year, with an average paid attendance of 19,940. The next best team was Real Salt Lake at 12,689. FC Dallas was last at 6,634.
Chivas USA sold the equivalent of 2,279 season tickets in its inaugural season and gave away more than twice that number (4,821 per match).
The league-wide paid attendance at midweek matches was 6,477 when you factor out international doubleheaders, a potentially troublesome statistic considering the league's new contract with ESPN2 calls for the televised game of the week to move from Saturday afternoon to Thursday nights next season. Abbott said “there's going to be a focus to build the crowd” for those matches.
The literal definition of attendance is the actual number of people attending an event, but sports organizations have long skewed that by reporting inflated numbers. Major League Baseball announces tickets sold, whether or not they are used. Most other leagues announce tickets distributed, including those handed out for free.
MLS claims it is among the latter, using the “industry standard” of tickets distributed for official attendance figures. Its 2006 media guide says “a record 2.9 million fans attended MLS regular season games” in 2005. But the Game Attendance Summary reports only 2.65 million total tickets were distributed, and of those just over 2 million were paid tickets.
Advertisement In 166 of the 192 regular-season matches last season, according to the MLS document, the announced attendance was higher than the number of tickets distributed. In 11 straight matches at Columbus, it was exactly 1,000 people higher.
That conflicts with what Abbott, the MLS president, told the Union-Tribune in May in an article about the vagaries of attendance reporting across all sports.
“(MLS teams) aren't faking the numbers,” Abbott said then. “We know this from the reports we get from the tickets distributed. It's not happening.”
In yesterday's interview, Abbott said the discrepancy – an average of 1,272 per game – can be explained by fans using vouchers to gain entrance to games or credentialed personnel, which don't count in the tickets-distributed figures.
However, current or former employees with three different MLS clubs said fans with vouchers must exchange them for a hard ticket that is recorded as a ticket distributed. They also said credentialed media and staff would account for approximately 200 people per game.
The Game Attendance Summary is clearer about complimentary tickets, which comprised 22 percent of tickets distributed to MLS matches last year. That is closer to what minor league sports give out. Industry experts estimate that the percentage of freebies at NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball games is significantly lower.
The number of comp tickets also seemed to increase as the season progressed, according to the MLS ticket report. In one September game hosted by expansion franchise Real Salt Lake, there were 6,443 paid tickets and 9,391 comps. The announced crowd that night was 17,876.
Sports marketing experts have long debated the strategy of “papering the house,” or inflating crowds by distributing free tickets. Some say it helps expose people to your product and enhance in-stadium atmosphere with a larger crowd; others say it devalues your paid ticket and ultimately chips away at consumer confidence.
Abbott said comps are distributed so fans can “sample the product” and also are regularly part of sponsorship packages.
“There is a role for comps,” Abbott said, “and it's important to make sure they are used in a valuable way. ... Is there a point where there are too many comps? At some point, a team could reach a level where we are not comfortable with it and we would have a conversation about it.”
Asked if such an incident had ever happened, Abbott said he could not remember one.
Several sources said the MLS Game Attendance Summary, which is updated regularly, is provided to investors but not to sponsors. And at least one MLS sponsor said it isn't bothered by that.
“Actual game attendance is only one of many factors that we as sponsors consider before we get involved with a particular entity,” said RadioShack spokesman Charles Hodges. “We have a lot of ancillary activities that go well beyond the game. ... We're well aware of how many bodies are in the stands. It's not a problem for us.”
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The numbers
A look at attendance figures for the 12 Major League Soccer teams from the 2005 season. The numbers come from the "Game Attendance Summary," a confidential MLS document obtained by the Union-Tribune that is updated regularly. It provides a snapshot of average paid tickets and complimentary (free) tickets, and how that compares to the official attendance figure announced to fans:
Team Paid att. Comps Total distributed Announced
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Chicago Fire 12,104 2,523 14,628 17,238
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Chivas USA 12,121 4,821 16,942 17,080
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Colorado Rapids 8,058 3,485 11,543 13,638
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Columbus Crew 8,608 3,735 12,342 12,916
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FC Dallas 6,634 3,864 10,498 11,189
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Kansas City Wizards 7,004 1,917 8,921 9,691
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Los Angeles Galaxy 19,940 3,214 23,155 24,329
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New England Revolution 9,725 1,472 11,197 12,525
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MetroStars* 9,956 3,776 13,732 15,077
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Real Salt Lake 12,689 3,009 15,697 18,037
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San Jose Earthquakes** 10,134 2,077 12,211 13,037
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D.C. United 11,982 3,186 15,169 16,664
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