Yes, you read that headline correctly - The Grandstander is about to offer a commentary on Professional Soccer in America, specifically, the MLS (Major League Soccer). I will take no judgement as to the quality of play of the teams and players, because, of course, I have no qualifications to do so. No, what is prompting this is a comment made by the commissioner of MLS, Don Garber, who recently said that in the next twenty years, MLS will have surpassed Major League Baseball in popularity.
Many people scoffed at this, but I did not. If you read The Grandstander regularly, you know that I have made many posts regarding the need for MLB to make changes, to alter the pace of play and "get with it" to adapt to tastes of 21st century audiences who are finding baseball becoming more and more unwatchable as World Series games approach four hours in length (not to mention meaningless games played in August and September). The cluelessness of both MLB Management and Players Union in their willingness to address these matters continues to contribute to the problem. This will result in games being played before smaller and smaller crowds and having lesser and lesser interest among the public as the Baby Boom generation continues to age and, eventually, die off. As an example, my older brother tells me that his four grandsons, who range in age from 18 to 25, can name you any number of soccer players in the English Premier League, but would be hard pressed to name a half dozen players from the Washington Nationals, the current World Series champions.
So, what about Mr. Garber's claim? I went to Wikipedia (so we all know that this must be true, right?) to check on attendance figures for the MLS for its most recently completed season, 2019:
Total Attendance (24 teams, 408 games) - 8,676,109
Average Attendance per Game -21,305
Highest Average Attendance - Atlanta 52,510
Lowest Average Attendance - Chicago 12,324
In terms of Attendance As a Percentage of Capacity:
- 100% or more - 6 teams
- 90% to 99% - 3 teams
- 80% to 89% - 7 teams
- 70% to 79% - 5 teams
- 60% to 69% - 3 teams
(Curiously, the three lowest Percent of Capacity teams are two teams in New York City and one team in Chicago. Not sure what that tells us.)
Major League Baseball, by contrast, had teams whose average attendance ranged from 10,016 (Miami Marlins) to 49,066 (LA Dodgers). The Dodgers played to an 87% capacity at Dodger Stadium last year; the Marlins at 27% capacity. Some other figures of interest: Red Sox at 96% capacity, Yankees at 86% capacity, and, of local interest, the Pirates at 48% capacity (18,413/game).
I am sure that somewhere out there one can find a decennial breakdown of percentage of capacity for the 30 MLB teams. I quit looking for it after awhile, and I didn't want to take the time of compiling this on a team-by-team basis. Perhaps another time.
And just to carry this out a bit further, I did a comparison of National Hockey League attendance for the 2018-19 season. average attendance ranged from 12,442 (NY Islanders) to 21,399 (Chicago Black Hawks). In terms of percentage of capacity, here is how it broke down for the NHL:
- 100% or more - 10 teams
- 90% to 99% - 16 teams
- 80% to 89% - 1 team
- 70% to 79% - 4 teams
Locally, the Penguins averaged 18,565/game last year, good for 101% of capacity.
I'm too lazy to look up similar figures for the NBA. Feel free to do so on your own.
Conclusions? Well, I am not claiming to have made an authoritative, all-inclusive analysis of attendance trends all across major league sports in America, but I am willing to grant that the MLS Commissioner's statement cannot be dismissed out of hand. There are lots and lots of other factors involved (eg, what are the MLS TV ratings compared to other sports?), and we all know that numbers can be sliced and diced ("figures lie and liars figure", right?) to come up with any conclusion that you might want to make, but one conclusion that I can make is that the MLS should probably be considered a major sport in America. I won't be around in 2040 to see if Mr. Garber's prediction proves to be accurate, but I wouldn't bet against it.
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