The San Diego Wave recently announced a Sell-out crowd for their September 17th clash against Angel City FC. Whilst women’s Soccer more broadly is becoming more and more used to seeing this sort of news, see EURO 2022 and this season’s UEFA Champions League, NWSL clubs often fail to sustain large attendances over a prolonged period.
The Portland Thorns’ 2019 record of 25,218 at their game against the North Carolina Courage in 2019, is set to be surpassed by a San Diego crowd in excess of 32,000 for this clash of the 2 expansion sides. The Thorns, unsurprisingly, are the only NWSL club that have sustained crowds in excess of 15,000 over a significant period.
It can’t be another flash in the pan
What San Diego can’t afford to do, is allow this to be another flash in the pan. Whilst NWSL crowds overall are becoming healthier by the year, there are far too many examples of teams posting record attendances and not being able to keep them up. Look at the Orlando Pride for example, they hosted over 23,000 for their 2016 game against the Dash, and now average 3,435.
Again, the OL Reign (at Lumen Field), hosted 27,248 against OL Reign in May 2021. Now they average 4,986 so far in 2022. The Washington Spirit sold 19,471 for their home game at Audi Field, but only average 4,238. Even the Thorns have seen their average attendance drop to 15,133. Although, it has to be said… Merritt Paulson might have something to do with that. And understandably so.
Now, during any discussion of NWSL attendances, it has to be noted that not every team has the advantage of playing in huge soccer specific stadiums every week, like the Orlando Pride do for example. The Spirit alternate between Audi Field and the significantly smaller Segra Field. OL Reign, until 2022, flipped between Lumen Field and the even more significantly smaller Cheney Stadium in Tacoma.
Challenges ahead
Still, sell-outs aren’t a consistently recurring theme in the NWSL. Which is a significant challenge for the league. It’s a challenge women’s soccer faces the world over, admittedly; although the United States prevents very specific obstacles. The US is a country where soccer, despite its recent growth, isn’t the primary sport, as it is in most other countries. So the NWSL is fighting a war on two fronts.
Still, whilst the league has someway to go to ensure it sells out stadiums every week, there has been undoubted growth. Overall, attendances are up 17% on 2021 according to Soccer Stadium Digest. And the season hasn’t even finished yet; albeit with 2 additional teams. The issue is that attendances at most other clubs have stagnated or fallen slightly (see below).
Lessons to be learned
This is going to be the challenge for San Diego. How do they tap into this initial enthusiasm and harness it into longer term support? The answer is a layered one. And for said answer, we have to turn our eyes to Providence Park.
In many ways, they’re a model club. In many ways they aren’t, namely in terms of player safety. But that’s a separate discussion.
Despite their recent off the field issues, the Portland Thorns and the Rose City Riveters are the only ones to have successfully established a supporter culture that consistently attracts large crowds in excess of 17,000.
Former Thorns head coach Mark Parsons told The Guardian in 2019: “There’s this culture, and it’s a shame that I am saying they are special because of this, but the people of Portland want to see females succeed. They’re world-class athletes, fans want to put them on a pedestal like they deserve to be, while knowing they get support from the owner in terms of finance and resources. The fans want to see women treated the way they deserve to be in the top fields of sports or business.”
The Thorns supporters don’t just show up either. They. Are. Loud. As you can hear in the footage below.
*Credit NWSL/CBS
I realise the Parsons quote is somewhat ironic, given the sorry state of affairs currently surrounding that organisation. But Parsons’ point on the supporter culture still stands. The Wave’s 32,000 sell out tells us there is a similar appetite for women’s soccer in the Southern Californian City, to that which can be found in Oregon. The Wave have to establish a connection with the city of San Diego and allow that connection to flourish naturally. The Wave will plant the seed when they face off against Angel City, now they need to let it grow.
Natural growth can’t be manufactured, but it needs work
There was an excellent piece by Meg Linehan in The Athletic a couple of years back that encapsulates this sentiment nicely: “There probably isn’t some secret attendance recipe that can be copied from Portland and applied — not just across the rest of the NWSL, but across sports in general. But maybe there are lessons, in terms of how the Thorns have connected to the larger community, have enabled first-timers to become fans, fans to become supporters, supporters to become such an important piece of the puzzle in Portland.
“The advantage of being in the best place in the world with the best fans paid off today. We’re grateful,” Thorns FC head coach Mark Parsons said in his press conference. “We’re grateful on a record-setting day that we have, from all sides of the stadium, people coming here and supporting these players and setting a new high standard on how to support and how to be connected.”
That connection can’t be forced, but the seven years of work that’s been put into it from both the club and the fans paid off on Sunday.”
The Wave need to find a way to harness and turn this record breaking crowd into longer term support, by *ahem* riding the Wave (sorry), which can only be for the betterment of the league.
Written by Dan Berridge
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