FC Cincinnati had a tremendous year at the box office in 2016. Everywhere you turned on social media, or the internet for that matter, the club and it’s massive turnouts were being mentioned. The USL had several league attendance records broken this year, thanks in large part to the first year franchise. The final tally for FC Cincinnati’s regular season was 259,437 for 15 home matches.
Many of us in Cincinnati weren’t sure what to expect from FC Cincinnati in year one, considering how poorly previous soccer franchises in the city had fared. I don’t know if ANYONE, even the top brass at FC Cincinnati, saw this coming. USL President Jake Edwards himself mentioned on a recent CST podcast that he thought that the club would do well, but not to the level achieved.
Even more impressive when looking at the numbers is seeing where FCC stacks up against teams around the country. A recent post on Kenn.com highlighted attendance figures from several different leagues around North America and amazingly FC Cincinnati finished the regular season 16th. That’s not even including the 30,000+ that showed up for the clubs very first postseason match. Unfortunately this list does not include any attendance figures from Liga MX, which we know is a massively popular league in Mexico.
A Closer Look
FCC’s average attendance was better than 25% of the teams in MLS, including 3 playoff teams in DC United, FC Dallas and the Colorado Rapids. FC Dallas won the Supporters Shield for having the best record in MLS. Colorado finished with the 2nd best record in the league. More importantly, FC Cincinnati outdrew in state Columbus Crew who were coming off playing in MLS Cup in 2015 but missed the postseason in 2016. Add it to the list of items MLS Commissioner Don Garber can’t ignore on his upcoming visit to the Queen City.
CST LIVE TONIGHT
Don’t forget to join us live tonight at 8 PM when we chat with USL MVP Sean Okoli on Cincinnati Soccer Talk! Join us at CincinnatiSoccerTalk.com/live.
NKU AND DAYTON ADVANCE TO THE NCAA SOCCER TOURNAMENT
The Women’s soccer programs at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Dayton have made it to the NCAA postseason. Check out Bryan Weigel’s preview of their upcoming tourney matches.
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