Something that I've decided I'm going to look at and follow for the rest of the season. I'm going to take a look at the average attendance for the Sporting KC Wiz(ards) throughout their history in comparison to the 2011 season in the new stadium. The season should easily come in as the top season attendance wise in the team history. The record is currently 15,573, set in 2003 when Lamar Hunt and the team went on a big push to bring in people to games. Other than that, the history has been pretty mediocre to bad attendance wise. Hopefully the large amount of games late this summer does not lead to a soccer burnout for fans in this city or else it's going to be very hard to sell tickets to some of those late August games.
Anyway, what I'm going to do is each time KC has a home game, I'm going to add that to KC's average attendance for the season and compare it to the other seasons in KC's history. For comparison purposes, 1996 through 2000 and 2005 through 2006 there were 16 home games each season. In 2001 there were only 13 home games as one was canceled due to the events of 9/11. 2002 had 14 home games. 2003, 2004, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010 all had 15 home games. This year KC will have 17 home games. So here are the first two attendances for every season and the average after those games, rounded up or down accordingly. All these attendances have been pulled from either team write ups or from the team's media guide so if you take issue with the attendance number take it up with them.
I will not discuss things like weather and how it played a role in the attendance, I'm just looking at the numbers, I know the 2001 opener was played in a down pour and that the second game in 2009 was the sleet, snow, rain game against San Jose, I'm just looking at the numbers, not what contributed to them.
1996 - Arrowhead
21,141
8,848
average 14,995
1997 - Arrowhead
10,198
8,406
average 9,302
1999 - Arrowhead
10,299
4,130 (lowest attendance in KC history)
average 7,215
1999 - Arrowhead
15,509
8313
average 11,911
2000 - Arrowhead
7,540
5,250
average 6,395
2001 - Arrowhead
13,042
4,420 (3rd lowest in KC history)
average 8,731
2002 - Arrowhead
11,769
10,636
average 11,203
2003 - Arrowhead
22,403 (highest opening day attendance in KC history)
14,586
average 18,495
2004 - Arrowhead
20,229
9,682
average 14,956
2005 - Arrowhead
13,484
12,008
average 12,746
2006 - Arrowhead
18,143
8,436
average 13,290
2007 - Arrowhead
7,438 (lowest opening day attendance in team history)
7,426
average 7,432
2008 Community America Ballpark
10,385
8,731
average 9,558
2009 - Community America Ballpark
10,385
6,922
average 8,654
2010 - Community America Ballpark
10,385
10,228
average 10,307
2011 - LiveSTRONG Sporting Park
19,925
18,467
average 19,196
So here are the rankings of those attendances currently. In following weeks I will include how far the year has moved up or down in attendance in comparison to the rest of the years.
2011 - 19,196
2003 - 18,495
1996 - 14,995
2004 - 14,956
2006 - 13,290
2005 - 12,746
1999 - 11,911
2002- 11,203
2010 - 10,307
2008 - 9,558
1997 - 9,302
2001 - 8,731
2009 - 8,654
2007 - 7,432
1998 - 7,215
2000 - 6,395
Great project, obviously you love the team, this is a lot of stats to compile. Might be good as an open sourced project and maybe we could see what other interesting items other Sporting CK fans could come up with. maybe using Google Docs?
ReplyDeleteI made this spreadsheet by year of your data so far.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AgNCbgskanoWdG45bzg3V0UxZFA4V0JTTndaVnZfY1E&hl=en_US
Watching on TV I noticed quite a few empty seats opposite the main camera.
ReplyDeleteYes there were quite a few empty spots across the stadium but around halftime most of them were pretty filled in. I am guessing the attendance is counted more by ticket sold instead of gate tickets taken. And i would presume this would be how it was for all the previous years so the same bias likely exists.
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