Toronto



Montreal



Vancouver



Salt Lake



San Jose

1996 17410
1997 14606
1998 14312
1999 14282
2000 13756
2001 14961
2002 15821
2003 14900
2004 15549
2005 15112
2006 15426
2007 16767
2008 16460
2009 16037
2010 16675
2011 17869
2012 18801
2013 18608

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You'll note that best attended seasons have all been recent, and 2014 will be no different with 2015 set to be likely best year.

Those pictures are so corporate and boring :))

Basketball, Icehockey, Women's football to name a few.

The notion that Basketball is only played in America is silly. Basketball is like the 2nd or 3rd most popular sport in Germany. Except for USA, the European teams are teams are the strongest force in Basketball, particularly Spain and Serbia.

I hope we never descend into violence and gang mentality.  Been to Wisla Krakow and was fine and never felt in danger.

They must have been winning :)

I was just posting those photos as a joke, it certainly is helpful to have law and order in your stadiums to attract viewers. England is a prime example, once they cracked down on violence.

We tend to police our selves and segregate away and home support to avoid issues.  On the flip side I hope we are never broken like what has happened to the English with being told to sit downa nd be quiet.  To me the Bundesliga is the model to follow.

MLS Expansion

2005 - Salt Lake
2005 - Los Angeles
2006 - Houston
2007 - Toronto
2008 - San Jose*
2009 - Seattle
2010 - Philadelphia
2011 - Vancouver
2011 - Portland
2012 - Montreal
2015 - Orlando
2015 - New York City
2017 - Atlanta

*Reformed, initially founded in 1996

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My point? Billionaires did not invest fortunes in recent years as charity. They see the potential and financials of the league and sport. Many such as Rochester, Saint Louis, San Antonio, Minnesota, Las Vegas have all shown interest as well.

Not sure if it's been said yet, but the real reason why nobody likes soccer is because theyre not told to like soccer.
and the reason for this is because of advertising.
there is no reason for the media to pump up soccer when there are no revenues to be made from it.
its a game with only one break. That means no advertising.

Its actually pretty obvious when you look at the popular sports.
Olympics: non stop commercials
baseball: commercials every 6-8 minutes. They'll even take a break DURING an inning
football: commercials every 10-12 minutes
hockey: commercials every 15-20 minutes
basketball: commercials every 10 minutes and during timeouts

Secondly, soccer isnt a very good momentum game. Its hard to gulag in soccer who is doing better. Theres no real buildup. Goals are mainly just breakaway occurrences. That coupled with low scores really makes it difficult to build interest.
in baseball there are bases, football there are yards, basketball has points, hockey (a lower popularity sport) has this same problem but makes up for it with a smaller field of play making for more scoring opportunities.

Except, of course, the millions of Americans and Canadians who do like soccer.  The biggest issue the sport has, as this thread shows, is perception.  

People think nobody likes soccer because they are told nobody likes soccer.  

Ignore the thousands of people every week who attend and watch league and international matches.  Ignore the fact that television contracts for foriegn and domestic leagues have exploded in past decade. Ignore that the World Cup is now one of the most viewed events in the country. 17 million people watched the US play England in 2010, 19 million watched the US play Ghana. The average viewer was in their 30s.

Massives companies like Nike, Adidas and Pepsi do not dump millions into a sport no one likes.  We are simply a massive country with enough space for multiple sports.  I think in the next two or three World Cups we will see the break through where the general public realize the tremendous progress made since 1994.