How Does Seattle Attendance Stack Up?

By: Steve | July 15th, 2009

Seattle has blown away the soccer doubters this year, with packed stadiums and a dedicated fan base even in the face of economic recession. But just how good is Seattle’s attendance? We took a look around the soccer and professional sports world and asked the question: if Seattle was in _______ league, how would they rank based on average attendance.

First, lets put it in an overall context:

German Bundesliga = 42,599 *Europe’s best
EPL = 35,582
MLB = 30,045
Sounders FC (est.) = 29,984*
Spanish Primera División = 28,491
Italian Serie A = 25,324
Scottish Premier League = 15,537
MLS = 15,434

So taking a more detailed approach Sounders would be:

…12th in Bundesliga, not bad considering German teams account for 9 of the top 20 best attendance records in Europe

…12th in the EPL, not bad

…8th in La Liga

…6th in Serie A

…3rd in the Scottish Premiere League

Well, that is all well and good, but soccer is not as popular as other sports in the USA, right? Soccer could never surpass our national pastime, baseball, could it? Well, check this out, the Sounders would be 13th in Major League Baseball with over 2,000 more fans per game than the resurgent Mariners.

Seattle attendance is not just respectable, it is downright impressive, so kudos to the Sounders fans who have been going and look like they will continue to go. There is no reason to think we will see a drop off in the following season.

On Saturday, we will see QWest’s beauty as a soccer stadium to its full extent: with a sell out crowd of 67,000 to see Chelsea. The question is, can Seattle find a way to one day fill out the 67,000 seat stadium against the likes of say… the San Jose Earthquakes.

If they can, the Sounders fan base and attendance can go from solid, to downright elite. I hope we see that day.

All European league figures are unofficial statistics from ESPNSoccernet.com
Sounders average attendance figures provided by MLS Daily
MLB attendance figures courtesy of MLB.COM

Category: Expansion Teams, MLS, Only on Seattle Offside, Seattle Sounders FC, Seattle Team News, Stadium

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Laurie

Domenic, over on some Seattle forums tonight, some guy from DC was trying to tell us that our attendance may be great rightn ow, but in a few years we'd be "just like Toronto."

One of our guys pointed out that your attendance this year us actually up over 2007 and you're still selling out pretty much every game. As opposed to DC, whose attendance has dropped 25% in that same period.

Hee.:-)
Domenic

All the power in the world to you Sounders' supporters. You've made the league proud. TFC are no slouches either though. We're sold out on the year, again (20,000 per game), and we have a 14,000 person waiting list. Look for grass and seat expansion by 2011. Cheers!
Steve

wow tim, thank you for your reasoned and well thought out argument
NathanHJ

Tim, baby, time to dial back the on the caffeine.

Or take your charming personality over to BigSoccer.
Tim

What kind of fucking idiot actually has to compare the attendance to the SPL? Are you so brain dead that you didnt already know Seattle would come in 3rd. How un soccer savvy. It makes you look fucking small time to not know that only two teams in the SPL draw anyone to a fucking game, moron.
Brian

You left out Last in the NFL
Scottie Brown

The Sounders numbers are really impressive but Jose's comment with respect to baseball is right on - it's not an apples to apples comparison. Season ticets would cost significantly more if the Sounders were playing 81 home games instead of 16. No way would you be able to buy a season ticket for under $300.

The Sounders have a great product, no doubt, but they also have a very affordable product on a season-wide basis.
Laurie

Agreed. The location is perfect -- within walking distance of downtown. We could never have had this success if we'd had to buy land and build an SSS in suburbia.

(Now for some real grass...)
Jordan

It's effectively as in the city as it can be.

Frankly, if the team keeps winning -- or at least playing competitively -- than there's absolutely no reason to assume these numbers will go anywhere but up over the next few years. Seattle fans can be a bit fairweather, but when their teams are hot, they attend in droves.
Johonna

Dave, Quest Field is two blocks south of the historic center of Seattle and about 10 from the financial center. Basically, it is in the city and very accessible by public transportation.
Dave

Steve, where is the sounder's stadium located relative to the heart of Seattle?

The Rev's attendance seems to be in decline from last year, but they have also had fewer home games than most teams so far this season. Foxborough is a terrible location for the Revs and I really think they would do better playing in a Boston based stadium (**praying for Sulivan Square Stadium Development!)
jtd

way cool article. kind of opens my eyes... especially considering that Portland, Vancouver and Montreal (most likey) are on their way. Both have a similar tradition to Seattle's.
DaveS

@Jose: I think the Sounders could keep attendence up--at this time, anyway--for 81 games if they had the accessible cheap seats of MLB. I would be interested in a comparison of ticket revenue per game/match.
Fwembt

How much of this do you think is due to the novelty aspect? This becomes impressive if attendance is still like this five years down the road.
Johonna

[snicker] I just love that Sounders attendance smokes the Mariners.

Take THAT stinky ol' baseball!
Lee

Maybe some day Qwest Field will become North America's version of the Camp Nou
Jose

Let's keep in mind, though, that it's unfair to compare football teams with baseball teams. The Sounders might be getting 2,000 more per game than the Mariners, but the Mariners are packing 27,000+ seats at least EIGHTY ONE times a season, compared to the Sounder's 15.
Dirt

Nice write up. Pretty amazing stuff.
Dustin

Maybe soccer isn't the biggest thing in America, but it's gonna tip someday, there's just no chance of it going away. Hopefully the US National Team can represent US Soccer like they did in the Confed Cup and like the Women's National Team does in every competition. I can't wait to watch more US based Referees yelled at by more international audiences.
Akeem

Dude thats straight up ballin man. Thats some serious research on your part. Very extensive and love the charts, keep up good work.
Anthony

This was a really good article, that's some really interesting stuff. Only if the rest of the MLS could follow suit eh?
dave martinez

That is amazing says the anemic Red Bull audience.
John

Pretty cool. If I still lived in Washington I would go to as many games as I could.
draketw

awesome write up, can't wait to see our home field at full capacity