Attendance Rates

Denver is lucky to be one of only eight cities in the country to have all five professional sports leagues in the US. Considering that Denver is one of the smallest markets in all the leagues, it says a lot about Colorado sports fans that Denver can support all 5 teams successfully.

	MLS	NFL	MLB	NBA	NHL
Boston	Revolution	Patriots	Red Sox	Celtics	Bruins
Chicago	Fire	Bears	Cubs, White Sox	Bulls	Blackhawks
Denver	Rapids	Broncos	Rockies	Nuggets	Avalanche
Dallas	FC Dallas	Cowboys	Rangers	Mavericks	Stars
D.C.	DC United	Redskins	Nationals	Wizards	Captiols
New York	Red Bulls	Giants, Jets	Yankees, Mets	Knicks, Nets	Rangers, Devils, Islanders
Philadelphia	Union	Eagles	Phillies	76ers	Flyers
San Francisco	Earthquakes	49ers, Raiders	Giants, Athletics	Warriors	Sharks

This got me thinking about attendance rates and how the Broncos have sold out every home game since I can remember. So I found the attendance statistics for Denver's 5 pro teams to see how well Denver sports are at drawing fans, and I was impressed.

	Rapids	Broncos	Rockies	Nuggets	Avalanche
Average Attendance for most recent complete season	14,838	75,327	35,923	16,901	14,820
Average Percent of Stadium Filled	82%	99%	71%	88%	82%

I then wondered how Denver's attendance statistics compared to the other 7 cities who have all five pro sports. I found the average attendance for each major sports team in each market, and calculated how full each stadium is on average for each team. I then averaged all the teams in each city together to get the attendance rates listed below.


San Francisco is a bit funky because nearly every team was at 100%, but the San Jose Earthquakes were at 115%. For some reason the average attendance at a SJE game is larger than the total capacity of their stadium...

Also, NY has nine teams. Some are well attended (like the Giants, Yankees, and Red Bulls) and others are not well attended (like the Nets and Islanders). This is why NY is below Colorado because some of these rates really dragged them down. If I only included the best attendance records from each sport, NY would be at the top. Oh, the tyranny of choice...too many teams for New Yorkers to choose from!

City	Attendance rate
Philadelphia	95.3%
San Francisco	93.8%
Boston	91.9%
Chicago	89.4%
Denver	84.5%
New York	84.1%
D.C.	80.7%
Dallas	79.7%

I was disappointed to see Boston above Denver in this list. I don't think Boston should be better than us at anything.

I then calculated simply average attendance by all five sports (not considering stadium capacity). Dallas skyrocketed to near the top of the list because of the enormity of New Cowboy Stadium. NY also went to the top simply because they have so many teams in the area. I was happy to see Denver above Boston, mostly because of the poor attendance of Revolution games.

City	Attendance
New York	34,614
Dallas	33,986
San Francisco	33,877
Philadelphia	33,462
Denver	31,562
Boston	31,174
D.C.	30,606
Chicago	30,266

Here's the attendance rate for other cities whose sports teams I follow, but don't have all 5 pro teams.

I wasn't surprised to see that the Timbers in Portland had nearly a 100% attendance rate, but I was shocked to see that the Trail Blazers in PDX had the 2nd best attendance in the NBA during the 2010-11 season!

Seattle would have been close to 100%, but the Mariners really hurt the city by having only a 48% attendance rate compared to the Seahawks and Sounders who are close to 100%.

City	Attendance rate
Portland	98%
Buffalo	92.3%
Seattle	82.7%

	MLS	NFL	MLB	NBA	NHL
Portland	Timbers			Trail Blazers
Buffalo		Bills			Sabres
Seattle	Sounders	Seahawks	Mariners

Table That May Only Interest Me and My Dad

As of this last weekend I've seen all 32 NFL teams play a regular season game in Denver.

I have seen the Broncos beat 30 out of the 31 other teams in the league.

The Detroit Lions are the only NFL team I have never seen the Broncos beat in Denver.

I have never seen the Tennessee Titans play as the Titans. The last time I saw them was 1992 as the Houston Oilers.

In "My Most Recently Seen Games" against every NFL team the Broncos have a record of 18-13.

I have been to 5 playoff games in Denver against Jacksonville (twice), Miami, New York Jets, and Pittsburgh.

List of Every NFL Team I Have Seen Play Live

TEAM	DATE LAST SEEN	LAST SEEN RESULT	LAST SEEN SCORE	LAST SEEN WIN DATE	LAST SEEN WIN SCORE
Detroit Lions	11/30/2011	L	45-10
San Diego Chargers	10/9/2011	L	29-24	9/14/2008	39-38
Cincinnati Bengals	9/18/2011	W	24-22
Oakland Raiders	9/12/2011	L	23-20	12/24/2005	22-3
Houston Texans	12/26/2010	W	24-23
St. Louis Rams	11/28/2010	L	36-33	9/8/2002	23-16
Kansas City Chiefs	11/14/2010	W	49-29
New York Jets	10/17/2010	L	24-20	10/5/2000	30-23
Indianapolis Colts	9/26/2010	L	27-13	10/3/1993	35-13
Seattle Seahawks	9/19/2010	W	34-14
New York Giants	11/26/2009	W	26-6
Pittsburgh Steelers	11/9/2009	L	28-10	11/21/1993	37-13
Dallas Cowboys	10/4/2009	W	20-17
Cleveland Browns	9/20/2009	W	27-6
Buffalo Bills	12/21/2008	L	30-23	9/22/2002	28-23
Miami Dolphins	11/2/2008	L	26-17	1/9/1999	38-3
Jacksonville Jaguars	10/12/2008	L	24-17	10/25/1998	37-24
Tampa Bay Buccaneers	10/5/2008	W	16-13
New Orleans Saints	9/21/2008	W	34-32
San Francisco 49ers	12/31/2006	L	26-23	12/23/2000	38-9
Arizona Cardinals	12/29/2002	W	37-7
Washington Redskins	11/18/2001	L	17-10	9/17/1995	38-31
New England Patriots	10/28/2001	W	31-20
Baltimore Ravens	9/30/2001	L	20-13	10/20/1996	45-34
Atlanta Falcons	9/10/2000	W	42-14
Minnesota Vikings	12/30/2007	W	22-19 OT
Green Bay Packers	10/17/1999	W	31-10
Philadelphia Eagles	10/4/1998	W	41-16
Carolina Panthers	11/9/1997	W	34-0
Chicago Bears	11/10/1996	W	17-12
Tennessee Titans (as Houston Oilers)	10/18/1992	W	27-21