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That’s the question that I posed to a few friends recently … prompted by the World’s Cup excitement and bruhaha over player pay.

I set the over-under at 1 … and, if you had bet the under, you would have won.

Assuming that I drew a bad, non-projectible sample, I checked out attendance numbers for the U.S. pro soccer leagues.

Some surprised me…

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Let’s start with the MLS – men’s Major League Soccer.

Place your bets: How many men’s pro soccer teams? Average attendance per game?

According to Wiki (the Homa Family bible for settling sports bets) …

In 2018, there were 23 professional men’s soccer teams  that played 391 games.

The average game attendance was 22,863 … total season attendance was just over 8.5 million.

Note: The Minimum MSL salary is about $70,000 … “senior roster players” earn an average of $200,000. Source

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OK, so what about women’s professional soccer?

There is one women’s professional soccer league — the National Women’s Soccer League.

The NWSL has 9 teams.

Quick test: How many NWSL teams (or cities) can you name?

The NWSL played 108 games in 2018 … averaging 6,024 fans per game … for a total season attendance of 650,562

Note: The highest paid professional soccer players earn $45,200 per season Source

Let’s put those numbers in context …

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The WNBA has 12 teams … that played 204 games in 2018.

Average WNBA attendance is 7,716 per game … for a total season attendance of 1,574,078

Note: The average WNBA salary is about $75,000. The maximum veteran salary is $113,500.

The minimum  of a professional NBA player is $838,464.

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There are 30 Triple-A Minor League Baseball teams … that played 2,023 games

Average AAA attendance is 6,615 per game … roughly the same as the NWSL.

Total AAA attendance is over 13 million annually.
13,381,926

Note: According to MLB, the average salary for minor league players in Class AAA is $60,000 (for a 6-month season) Source

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These are the nums … draw your own conclusions.

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