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It might not seem like it sometimes, but the guys running the office at MLS HQ in New York are actually doing some pretty smart things. For one, they've managed to break yet another record this year with the league surpassing all other attendance records set by previous leagues in addition to finally cracking 6,000,000 fans in a single season. That's not a small amount, in fact it's only about a third of the number of people that attend NFL matches every year.
According to We Follow Football the exact stats for the 2012 regular season are:
Total: 6,072,677
Average: 18,801
This puts MLS squarely in top 10 territory for best attended soccer leagues in the world. I believe it actually puts them in 8th now above both Ligue 1 and the English Championship. It might also see them surpass the Chinese Super League who, last I checked had an average of 18,924, but could have slid a bit throughout the season as we saw with MLS.
One thing is for sure, being part of one of the few teams with an average attendance over 20,000, you can rest assured that Portland made a huge impact on this record. So pat yourself on the back!
How do you think 2013 will end up?