People Will Come

There are two major international soccer tournaments going on in the United States right now.  Attendance hasn't been very high at either one.  That has drawn plenty of criticism from skeptics who are worried about what that means for next year's World Cup.  Spoiler alert: It means nothing.  The World Cup will be sold out and likely set an attendance record (just like the 1994 World Cup in the United States).

I can tell you the reason why the stands will be full at the World Cup while they aren't at either the Club World Cup or the Gold Cup.  It's actually very simple.  People care about the World Cup.  They don't care about the Club World Cup or the Gold Cup.  And, seeing as World Cup ticket prices will likely be astronomical, if fans can only afford to go to one, it's pretty obvious which they'll choose.

This isn't the first time soccer people have called out the attendance at games in the U.S.  The U.S. Men's National Team isn't even immune to it.  At the CONCACAF Nations League in March, there were a lot of empty seats at SoFi Stadium for third-place game between the United States and Canada.  But, again, that's because people didn't care.  It was the third-place game of the CONCACAF Nations League!  And it was being played at SoFi Stadium (which has 70,000 seats) in March (when there are a lot of other things going on that are more likely to get people's attention).

That's the thing that the non-American fan still doesn't get.  Americans show up for big events.  But we can't come to all of them.  There's so much going on that you have to pick and choose.  Look at last year's Copa America.  People came to that.  The Club World Cup?  Not so much.  And playing the games in 70,000-seat football stadiums doesn't help matters, either, since even 25,000 still looks empty.

Let's call a spade a spade here, too.  FIFA severely misjudged the enthusiasm for the Club World Cup.  Ticket prices were way too high at the beginning and they were selling the entire stadiums instead of sectioning them off (which they eventually started doing so that the stadiums look less empty on TV).  They were never going to sell 70,000 tickets in Atlanta regardless of who was playing!  Next year at the World Cup, they will.  Because it's the World Cup.

Atlanta was singled out for its attendance because that was the site of the Chelsea-LAFC game on Monday.  That game kicked off at 1:00 in the afternoon on a workday.  Not just a workday, a Monday.  People weren't taking off work at 1:00 on a Monday to go to a Chelsea-LAFC game.  (I haven't seen the attendance figures for the entire tournament, but I'd figure a majority of the 1:00 midweek kickoffs have been sparsely attended for the same reason.)

While it's hard for European fans to grasp that since they live and die by these football clubs, for Americans, it's just two random teams.  Baseball and the other football are the sports where American fans are die-hards who'll travel to any game, anywhere, any time.  Two random soccer teams at 1:00 on a Monday, though?  I actually think that 25,000 was a pretty good attendance number (even though FIFA likely fudged it).

And the criticism directed towards the fact that LAFC was playing in Atlanta instead of LA was really more a sign of ignorance than anything else.  It's complaining for the sake of complaining from someone who didn't even care enough to know the actual reason, which is actually pretty simple.  LAFC was the last team to qualify for the tournament, winning a play-in game a few weeks ago.  And they only got in as a replacement.  The schedule had already been made when LAFC qualified.  So, it's not like they could just up and move a game from Atlanta to LA at the last minute just so they could play a "home" game (which wouldn't have even been at their home field since it likely would've been at SoFi Stadium).

It's not limited to the Club World Cup, either.  The Gold Cup is always played in the United States.  The stadiums are always empty at games that don't involve either the United States or Mexico.  Canada opened the tournament with a home game in Vancouver, and even that one drew only 25,000.  CONCACAF is at least playing the Gold Cup at some soccer-specific venues with smaller capacities, so the optics are better with fewer empty seats.

Although, even if the low attendance in the massive football stadiums doesn't look great, using them is serving a practical purpose.  Every American venue being used for next year's World Cup is an NFL stadium.  They need to have a test event beforehand.  That was the entire point of playing the Club World Cup in the U.S.  So, as much as anything else, they're using it to make sure everything's good to go for next summer.

Which is why, ultimately, I doubt FIFA cares about how many empty seats there are at the Club World Cup.  Would they like the stadiums to be full?  Sure.  But people have been skeptical of the event from the start, and they saw the early ticket sales, so I don't think they were expecting full houses.  And, who knows?  Maybe once the tournament gets to the knockout rounds, there will be more fans in the stands.

So, no, the attendance (or lack thereof) at the Club World Cup says more about the Club World Cup than it does about American soccer fans.  It's not general apathy.  It's apathy towards the event.  And, since this isn't a soccer-mad country and there are plenty of other options, people are staying away.  Playing in NFL stadiums at 1:00 in the afternoon sure isn't helping matters, either.  (I'm assuming they gave the European teams most of those early games since it's primetime there.)

Popular European clubs like Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and Inter Milan simply aren't enough to move the needle.  Neither are superstar players like Lionel Messi.  Not when there are also so many random teams from Africa and Asia and so many of the games are blowouts.  And not when the reception to the Club World Cup was already lukewarm at best.

Next summer, it'll be a different story.  The World Cup is the World Cup.  There's no doubt that fans will show up in droves and the stadiums will be full.  FIFA is counting on it.  That's one of the reasons why they wanted to go back to the U.S. in the first place.  The 1994 World Cup set attendance records, and soccer wasn't even that popular a sport in the U.S. 30 years ago!  Now it is.