It was a brilliant opening weekend for Major League Soccer with 36 goals across the 10 games giving fans plenty to cheer about.
The action on the field translated into fans in the stands as MLS averaged 26,152 fans for 10 games on Sunday. That put MLS sixth in the world in average attendance over the weekend, ahead of such leagues as the French Ligue 1, Italian Serie A and Dutch Eredivisie.
From socceramerica.com
Average League Attendance (March 4-6):
43,496 German Bundesliga
35,910 Mexican Liga MX
34,500 English Premier League
29,103 *Chinese Super League
26,864 Spanish La Liga
26,152 Major League Soccer
25,152 French Ligue 1
21,644 Italy Serie A
19,259 Dutch Eredivisie
*Friday and Saturday games only
Equally as impressive as the average attendance was the fact that the Orlando City v Real Salt Lakde drew a crowd of 60,147 to the Citrus Bowl, making it the fifth highest crowd to watch a soccer game in the world over the weekend.
Club Attendance Highs (March 4-6):
81,359 Borussia Dortmund-Bayern Munich (Germany)
68,467 Real Madrid-Celta (Spain)
67,420 Club America-Morelia (Mexico)
63,578 River Plate-Boca Juniors (Argentina)
60,147 Orlando City-Real Salt Lake
53,892 Manchester City-Aston Villa (England)
52,815 Monterrey-Tigres (Mexico)
52,107 Newcastle United-Bournemouth (England)
49,300 FC Cologne-Schalke 04 (Germany)
48,855 Chongqing Lifan-Guangzhou Evergrande (China)
It helped MLS that D.C. United, Columbus and Colorado were all away from home opening weekend. But the 39,782 is low from Seattle’s perspective and would NYC FC have drawn more than 15,731 to their home opener?
MLS Week 1 Attendance (March 6):
60,147 Orlando City-Real Salt Lake (62,510)
39,525 Seattle-Sporting KC (39,782)
25,667 LA Galaxy-D.C. United (27,000)
22,120 Vancouver-Montreal (21,000)
21,594 Houston-New England (22,351)
21,303 NY Red Bulls-Toronto FC (21,036)
21,144 Portland-Columbus (21,144)
18,000 San Jose-Colorado (18,000)
17,768 Chicago-New York City (15,731)
14,248 FC Dallas-Philadelphia (15,236)