Football stadium attendance SPL/EPL/MLS/gridiron

[OC Richard]

For some unknown reason I was looking at the average attendance numbers for various football/soccer teams, and comparing them to baseball and NFL teams.

Sticking with football/soccer, I was noticing the average attendance of the best-attended teams in the SPL, EPL, and MLS.

Taking these three together, we have at "top ten" of

1 Man U 75,495
2 Arsenal 59, 957
3 Celtic 48,968
4 Man City 46,953
5 Newcastle 46,871
7 Rangers 45,305
8 Liverpool 44,945
9 Chelsea 41,649
10 Seattle 38,486

The SPL drops off dramatically after the top two: third place Hearts averages 14,185 fans per match.

In the MLS, second place Galaxy (with the best record in the league two years running) averages 23,335.

In Baseball, three teams (Philadelphia, Yankees, and San Francisco) average over 40,000 fans per game. But due to the long season, six teams average more than three million fans at home games per season.

The worst-attended Baseball team, Oakland, gets 18,232 fans per match but 1.5 million fans per season, more than Manchester United's 1.4 million.

The NFL has some bigger stadiums but teams only play 8 home matches per season. Top attendance is Dallas (83,075 per match) while 11 teams average more than 70,000 fans per match. (Only Manchester United in football is in that rarified air.)

Much larger than any of the above is College Football (Gridiron) in the US.

Five colleges average over 100,000 fans per match, four at 90,000+, five with 80,000+.