2019 Canadian Premier League Attendance

[grasshopper1917]

5 minutes ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

5446 announced in Hamilton:

https://www.soccerway.com/matches/2019/07/20/canada/canadian-premier-league/forge/valour/2991864/

Has to be quite disappointing. Saturday match on what looks on be a beautiful afternoon. That middle stand at center line looks almost empty. The other stands (besides the Battalions) looks really sparsely populated. 

[narduch]

Its gross hot today. I wouldn't bring a kid to a game in that heat

[king1010]

23 minutes ago, grasshopper1917 said:

Has to be quite disappointing. Saturday match on what looks on be a beautiful afternoon. That middle stand at center line looks almost empty. The other stands (besides the Battalions) looks really sparsely populated. 

Its 45 degrees out. I didnt go for that reason. It looks beautiful, its anything but tho. 

Edited July 20, 2019 by king1010

[grasshopper1917]

3 minutes ago, king1010 said:

Its 45 degrees out. I didnt go for that reason. It looks beautiful, its anything but tho. 

Ohh ok - yea similar hot here in Halifax today. 41 on the humidex   :S

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

2737 announced in Langford:

https://canpl.ca/matchcentre/52jsbc4wgu4ddcx6sah2u40oa/highlights

[ted]

3 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

2737 announced in Langford:

https://canpl.ca/matchcentre/52jsbc4wgu4ddcx6sah2u40oa/highlights

A slight upward tick. Guess the "military appreciation day" promotion was successful. Saw lots of uniforms in the stands.

 

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

...and probably a lot more comparable to the Forge on actual attendance than the announced numbers imply:

which is something to bear in mind whenever people start talking about the need to relocate Pacific FC (more a talking point on Reddit than on here, admittedly). If this weekend shows anything so far it is that warm sunny days in July can have their own set of problems and are not necessarily always the answer on what works best for drawing a large crowd.

Edited July 21, 2019 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[gator]

There is quite a difference between a "warm sunny day in July" and a day with extreme heat warnings, I love hot weather and was ok with the conditions yesterday, it obviously was a deterrent for some and many who were at the Forge match watched from the shade of the concourse!

[Kent]

The weather explanation for low attendance is closely tied to the fact that the fan base for these teams is still relatively small and the importance of the games is not yet felt to the degree it is for other more established teams/leagues. It's not yet "can't miss" for most people. From reading these boards it sounds like if the game isn't being played in a temperature range of between 22 and 28 degrees with clear skies, and not at the same time as another sporting event, and not at the right time of day or the right day of the week, that makes it perfectly fine that attendance is small. I don't think, say, NFL teams or EPL teams have those same constraints.

My thoughts have always been that the attendance is what it is in year 1. It sets the bar and we hope it improves (but it's very possible attendance will dip after year 1, like we saw with MLS, after the novelty factor wears off).

Edited July 21, 2019 by Kent

[MrsC]

On 7/21/2019 at 7:59 AM, gator said:

There is quite a difference between a "warm sunny day in July" and a day with extreme heat warnings, I love hot weather and was ok with the conditions yesterday, it obviously was a deterrent for some and many who were at the Forge match watched from the shade of the concourse!

This isn't an exaggeration.  The concourse was full all around the stadium, with people watching from the shade, and none of these people would have been captured on camera.  It was so hot that I heard a few people say they were leaving at half time because they were just too hot.

 

Edited July 23, 2019 by MrsC

[dyslexic nam]

It does raise an issue I have always wondered about tho - is it risky to assume soccer will outdraw things like water parks, beaches, etc during peak summer.   It would be a consideration if PEI ever got a D2 team.  We basically get 8-10 weeks of peak summer and Islanders squeeze every bit of fun out of that time.  For lots of folks - twenty somethings and family types alike - the idea of a soccer game isn’t the best option at that time of year.  Someone like me would go, but even I would have family priorities that conflict.  

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

Crowd in Calgary announced as 3538:

https://www.soccerway.com/matches/2019/07/21/canada/canadian-premier-league/cavalry/york-9/2991866/

[DoyleG]

9 hours ago, gator said:

There is quite a difference between a "warm sunny day in July" and a day with extreme heat warnings, I love hot weather and was ok with the conditions yesterday, it obviously was a deterrent for some and many who were at the Forge match watched from the shade of the concourse!

Well, we are taking seriously the words of a troll who relies on what is in many was a troll site.

I'm used to being in hot weather conditions, especially with travel and work over the past few years, but even I learn to have my limits. Victoria, hasn't been too bad with hot weather compared to last year (certainly been more of a wet summer).

This is often why I would consider that the only daytime matches should be played on a Sunday. If not for the need to have broadcast requirements, PFC and others would certainly like to have matches in the evening.

[MM3/MM2/MM]

3 hours ago, Ozzie_the_parrot said:

Crowd in Calgary announced as 3538:

https://www.soccerway.com/matches/2019/07/21/canada/canadian-premier-league/cavalry/york-9/2991866/

yes the crowd looked very good on one soccer.

[Unnamed Trialist]

About this, I have seen a few articles in Spain these last weeks about how they are using rather sophisticated formulas to decide what team plays when in the league, I'll try to find it. 

In any case, major leagues the world over have gotten to a high level of analysis in this regard, especially when it comes to tv audiences at home and abroad. This is why La Liga hardly ever plays games simulateously anymore, and has had Friday and Monday matches. Matches are  also starting way earlier, at noon or 1 pm, when in the past only one team did this when in top flight, Rayo Vallecano, being the third team in Madrid. This has to do with Asian markets, mostly, in the effort to compete with EPL which is way ahead. 

These odd times, especially Mondays and Fridays, are hated by most fans and hurt gates, but clubs don't overly complain because of the tv money coming in. 

This would suggest that similar principles could and will be applied for the CPL. The capacity for analysis is there. But it would have a possible consequence: not releasing a full schedule at the start of the season, but adjusting as you go, which is the way things go in Spain--basically all decisions by Media Pro/Movistar.

I personally think that this is fine that apart from certain dates like Canada Day, or a provincial holiday perhaps, no one really cares if their team plays on September 21st or 22nd, until you get to within 5-6 weeks. 

If CPL is going to be part of a French cable package next season, you would logically have to look at French schedules, and adjust the CPL scheduling accordingly, for your one weekly match. The problem, of course, is that anything from noon on live in Canada clashes with peak tv times in Europe. So maybe it is recorded filler?

Edited July 22, 2019 by Unnamed Trialist

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

6 hours ago, MM3/MM2/MM said:

yes the crowd looked very good on one soccer.

I suspect the bean counters at Spruce Meadows would prefer that the large white letters in the main grandstand were not quite as visible as they are during games like this and that they weren't having to use the 4 for $99 general admission deal to get it to look as full as that in the central sections:

They spent more money on their popup than Halifax did and that's probably the main reason why the ticket pricing schemes were so different. It would be interesting to see whether they could have consistently been at 5000+ on reasonable weather days with Halifax's approach.

 

[CDNFootballer]

 

[CDNFootballer]

Roughly the halfway point in games, CPL attendance overall doing quite well IMHO. The first year Division 1 Canadian league is averaging more than the American D2 USL Championship who is averaging 4389 per game as comparison, and CPL's worst drawing club is still better than 12 of the USL franchises.

[grasshopper1917]

54 minutes ago, CDNFootballer said:

Roughly the halfway point in games, CPL attendance overall doing quite well IMHO. The first year Division 1 Canadian league is averaging more than the American D2 USL Championship who is averaging 4389 per game as comparison, and CPL's worst drawing club is still better than 12 of the USL franchises.

All in all I agree it has been fairly decent. York I think is a cause for concern. Edmonton and Pacific also have some serious work to do.as well. I think Calgary will be fine as long as they bring ticket prices WAY down next year. Winnipeg, Hamilton and Halifax all have strong season ticket bases and solid numbers.

[Macksam]

@DoyleG

Yes, I agree, don't respond to the troll.

As for what can help attendance numbers next year, I think more evening games when the sun is down would help, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

[Stanley]

1 hour ago, Macksam said:

@DoyleG

Yes, I agree, don't respond to the troll.

As for what can help attendance numbers next year, I think more evening games when the sun is down would help, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights.

I agree, evening games are the best.  Loved watching the evening games at Swangard in the old Whitecaps/86ers days, wasn't so fond of their few early day games...and hate their 4pm kickoff times they have now.

[Ozzie_the_parrot]

8 hours ago, grasshopper1917 said:

All in all I agree it has been fairly decent. York I think is a cause for concern. Edmonton and Pacific also have some serious work to do.as well...

They went with a sensible low salary cap that appears to be more comparable to USL 1 setups than what was being talked about at one point when something higher than the NASL was being rumoured and appear to have managed to get Mediapro to pick up the tab for webstream production costs, so hopefully the stronger independently owned 6000-8000 USL Championship sort of numbers that were said to be needed on crowds are no longer applicable and none of the investors were expecting to be in 10,000+ Sacramento, Indy 11 and New Mexico territory on attendance any time soon:

 When you look at the comparable USL numbers and compare with CanPL the one thing that should jump out of the page is just how spectacular the crowds in Halifax have been when market size is taken into consideration.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Ozzie_the_parrot

[ted]

21 hours ago, grasshopper1917 said:

All in all I agree it has been fairly decent. York I think is a cause for concern. Edmonton and Pacific also have some serious work to do.as well. 

Fair enough, but it should be noted we are filling the same percentage of our stadium (roughly) as the top attended teams in the league.

[Kent]

2 hours ago, Lofty said:

Just checking the number for Valour's last home match (I had to go back a way!) I find that somebody at CPL HQ thinks that 6,678/33,134 = 95% !!

Just because you don't open some sections doesn't mean they aren't there!

Valour's actual percentage of capacity is around 20%.

Yeah, I hate that. It's not just CPL, teams like Seattle and Vancouver do the same thing. I think the logic goes something like "We have a 40k seat stadium but it's inconceivable we could sell more than 20k, so we'll only even try to sell 20k, which makes it a 20k stadium, unless we sell all the tickets soon enough, then we'll open up more of the stadium." Like, at that point you might as well say stupid things like "We sold 100% of the tickets sold".

[SoccMan]

I still think it’s a bad look when you watch a Forge game or a Valour game or even an Ottawa Fury game even though they are not in the CPL , and see these teams playing out of these massive stadiums with all those empty seats. It doesn’t do justice to these teams that are actually getting good attendances but you would never know it because all your seeing is all those empty seats. However, you watch a Pacific game or a Cavalry game and even though they are getting less people than Forge and Valour it just looks so much better and more engaging to watch because you see stadiums that look so much more full than overwhelmingly empty like Forge and Valour,  6000 people in a 25000 to 30000 seat stadium are basically lost and engulfed by the mountains of empty seats . I really wish every team in this league had smaller stadiums like Pacific,  Cavalry and Halifax have. Maybe one day most teams will need the bigger stadiums but until that day the smaller stadiums should be the norm right across this league.