The Major Arena Soccer League is in its fifth season, and is on pace to finish with its lowest average overall attendance. Despite bringing back a team (Dallas) from hiatus and adding three new markets (Utica, Orlando and suburban Toronto), the league is struggling to draw fans in many of its arenas.
First, the numbers and then, some notes.
| Team | G | Total | Average | Median | High | Low |
| Milwaukee Wave | 4 | 17,226 | 4,307 | 4,340 | 6,239 | 2,308 |
| Baltimore Blast | 5 | 17,542 | 3,508 | 3,706 | 3,811 | 2,672 |
| Utica City FC | 6 | 18,962 | 3,160 | 3,285 | 3,542 | 2,367 |
| St. Louis Ambush | 4 | 11,523 | 2,881 | 2,331 | 4,750 | 2,112 |
| Harrisburg Heat | 2 | 5,626 | 2,813 | 2,813 | 2,954 | 2,672 |
| Tacoma Stars | 6 | 16,299 | 2,717 | 2,482 | 3,505 | 2,119 |
| Dallas Sidekicks | 4 | 10,619 | 2,655 | 2,568 | 3,568 | 1,915 |
| San Diego Sockers | 6 | 15,841 | 2,640 | 2,699 | 3,221 | 2,079 |
| Monterrey Flash | 3 | 7,646 | 2,549 | 2,648 | 2,670 | 2,328 |
| Florida Tropics | 6 | 14,334 | 2,389 | 2,134 | 3,783 | 1,223 |
| Kansas City Comets | 5 | 11,084 | 2,217 | 2,079 | 4,482 | 728 |
| Ontario Fury | 6 | 10,220 | 1,703 | 1,670 | 2,061 | 1,305 |
| Orlando Seawolves | 4 | 6,170 | 1,543 | 1,399 | 2,478 | 895 |
| Mississauga MetroStars | 6 | 6,950 | 1,158 | 883 | 2,714 | 687 |
| Rio Grande Valley Barracudas | 5 | 5,175 | 1,035 | 962 | 1,350 | 886 |
| El Paso Coyotes | 4 | 2,503 | 626 | 542 | 1,205 | 215 |
| Turlock Express | 4 | 1,800 | 450 | 435 | 550 | 380 |
| MASL TOTAL | 80 | 179,520 | 2,244 | 2,217 | 6,239 | 215 |
NOTES:
- Milwaukee is the only team in the league averaging more than 4,000 per game. (The Wave were the only team to crack 4k per game last year as well.) Six teams – or more than a third of the league – aren’t even drawing half that per game.
- Utica has been a success story to this point. The former Syracuse Silver Knights have sold out their last three home games1They won’t sell out all 12, obviously, as they predicted, but these days, any sellout is a good sellout. (at an announced 3,542) and lead the Eastern Division at 8-3.
- The other new markets are struggling, to say the least. Mississauga averages (a generous) 1,158, while Orlando (which plays well away from the city itself, in Kissimmee) is pulling in just 1,543 per game.
- They’re BOTH still doing better than El Paso (626 average, and the season’s worst crowd of 215) and Turlock (which plays in a 550-seat rec center and is winless2I would expect Chris Handsor to get fired here any time now.) at 450, which is actually slightly ahead of where they finished last year.
- The Kansas City Comets had the misfortune of a game scheduled up against the AFC Championship Game being played 15 minutes away Sunday night. The Comets drew a season-low 728. (To be fair, Kansas City had also drawn 1,311 two days prior to that, and is averaging just 2,217, down from the last several years in this league and just more than half what they were drawing eight years ago as an expansion club in the third MISL.)
- If you follow indoor attendance like I do, you probably know about the adage that attendance usually picks up after the first of the year. (It’s largely true, though it’s also largely an effect of December being such a bad month for selling tickets to this sport.) It’s not holding up at the moment, though: 43 MASL games up to and including New Year’s Eve drew an announced average of 2,487. The 37 games since the ball drop and champagne toasts are below the 2,000 mark at 1,961.
- If every club in the league holds its current average, the MASL would finish with a final mark of 2,256 per game, which would be the lowest in its brief history and a third consecutive season of decline. I would expect a shakeout after this season, with several of today’s clubs not making it to 2019-2020.
