Slowly, but surely Major League Soccer (MLS) stadiums are reopening to fans across the country.
We wanted to get a current snapshot of where fan attendance stood across the league, so we compiled attendance stats for Week 7 (May 29-30, 2021) — about 20 percent through the 2021 season.
One caveat, local health policies continue to restrict attendance in most stadiums.
Biggest takeaways:
- Atlanta United led MLS attendance (40,748) in Week 7, with double the number of fans as Sporting KC (20,086), the club with the second highest attendance.
- Sporting KC vs. Houston Dynamo, two top teams in the West standings, played in front of approximately 20,000 fans, which is near full capacity at Children’s Mercy Park.
- Columbus Crew was last in attendance (5,700), similar where they left off in 2020.
- FC Cincy notched 11,000 fans in their new TQL stadium.
- If Austin FC had played Week 7 at Q2 Stadium (20,500 capacity), they would have likely ranked in the top 3 for stadium attendance.
- Overall average attendance is way off from pre-pandemic times — about 14,100 vs. 24,735 in 2020 (Week 1).
There were a total of 13 matches in Week 7; 10 are listed here, but MLS didn’t provide attendance stats for three matches last week.
Like Austin, we expect most MLS stadiums to allow full capacity in the next couple of months.