MASL attendance: best-ever average, but it’s complicated

The good news is that the Major Arena Soccer League recorded its highest-ever average attendance as a league this season.

The caveat is that it was almost all addition by subtraction.

The four worst-drawing teams¹League champion Chihuahua, along with Dallas, Texas and Harrisburg. in 2024-2025 did not return for 2025-2026 and that by itself boosted the league’s average because half of the remaining teams saw average attendance drops year-over-year.

First, the final (announced) numbers. Some notes follow.

NOTES:

• The final league average was 2,879, 26 percent ahead of last year and breaking the MASL record of 2,817 set in 2016-2017²Only a cynic would point out that nine of the 17 teams in the league that year did not compete in it this year..
• The eight teams that competed last year and this year were, collectively, up just over one percent. The rest of the gain was from the poorly drawing teams leaving the equation.
• Bolstered by a season finale team-record crowd of 7,861 today³That’s it, above, which…okay. Whatever., the Empire Strykers finished 22 percent ahead of last year’s average, tops in the league. San Diego (in its second year in its new building in Oceanside) saw a six percent gain, while St. Louis and Kansas City were up five and four percent, respectively.
• Utica – which had its worst season on the field since moving from Syracuse – had an 11 percent drop, as did Milwaukee. Tacoma (which was already struggling to draw crowds) was down six percent, and Baltimore fell another three percent from last year.
• March was the best month at the MASL turnstiles. The 26 March games drew an average of 3,168. January’s 2,472 average was the lowest, but all the months were in that band between 2,400 and 3,200 after the small-sample November (3,470 for three games).
• For years, indoor soccer attendance rose after New Year’s Day (largely because December was a bad time to try and sell tickets). The crowd in Ontario on the season’s final day pushed the post-Jan. 1 average this season past the pre-Jan. 1 average, but it was close (2,881 after to 2,873 before). Last year, attendance for games after the ball dropped were 15 percent lower than before.
• Only 17 percent of the league’s games this year were on Fridays, but they were the best-attended⁴Outside of two Tuesday games that drew a combined 8,249. with an announced average of 3,221. The bulk of league games were on weekends (Friday-Sunday) and those games drew an average of 2,821.
• Kansas City sells the highest capacity of its available seats. The Comets’ average of 4,455 (which led the league for the fourth straight year) represents 75 percent capacity. Not far behind is Utica at 71 percent and the Sockers fill Frontwave Arena to 65 percent capacity on average.
• It’s not so great at the other end: Tacoma only draws about 22 percent of its capacity, St. Louis finished at 23 percent and Milwaukee (in the league’s largest arena) is at 25 percent. The league plays to about 40 percent capacity, but it’s not realistic to expect a lot of growth there.

While playoff games are often a challenge because they are frequently midweek dates scheduled quickly, leaving little time to promote and sell, the postseason in this league is usually compelling. With three-time defending champion Chihuahua sitting this season out, some of the drama is gone, but the field is wide open and any of the six teams could conceivably win it.

The top two seeds get first-round byes, and the quarterfinal matchups have third-seeded Milwaukee taking on sixth-seeded Empire, while number four St. Louis and number five Kansas City go at it.

What happens after the new champion is crowned is anyone’s guess (as it has been for years). This league is a third as big as it was at launch, and while an expansion team in suburban Sacramento is in the pipeline for 2027, they have not broken ground on their new arena yet. MASL2 side Oklahoma City Certified Lions⁵Spare me this. have applied to move up.

As always, stay tuned.