Whether San Diego FC and its fans remain in the honeymoon phase, I don’t know.
But I know this: the solid popularity of SDFC’s home matches has held up well into the second half of club’s inaugural season.
The SDFC game experience equates to a fun night outdoors in east Mission Valley for some 22,000 to 32,000 fans, many of them young adults.
Attendance remains stable through 11 home games. That total exceeds a full home season of an NFL or major-college American football team.
San Diego FC is averaging 28,006 fans per game, a figure that ranks fourth out of 30 Major League Soccer clubs.
The announced attendance by most sports teams refers to tickets distributed. SDFC matches’ turnstile counts seem very close to the tickets distributed. These aren’t paper crowds.
It helps SDFC that a soccer-fan tradition, one that spans the football world, differentiates the MLS game day atmosphere from Padres and San Diego State fan vibes.
Team-sanctioned supporters groups maintain a continuous pulse by singing, chanting, banging drums, blaring horns and waving flags across the match’s 90 minutes. It may not be as demanding as 90 minutes of hot yoga. But it could burn off an 19.2-ounce IPA craft beer or any of the similar-sized lagers sold at Snapdragon Stadium.
Frontera SD, as SDFC’s official supporters union is known, has added to the game day atmosphere as the season has gone on.
Saturday night, Frontera got the crowd as a whole — 27,418 fans — to join into the chants. The 1-1 tie between SDFC and the Vancouver Whitecaps earned only a passing mark for entertainment, but the fan participation lifted the whole grade.
“I can feel them growing with us,” SDFC coach Mikey Varas said, “which is an amazing feeling.”
Credit 32,500-seat Snapdragon Stadium’s designers with a few victories, too.
The viewing platforms and concourses are a hit, especially with young adults. And the FIFA-sized pitch, for now, is passing muster with MLS players and viewers.
On the whole, it’s an adequate venue. A soccer palace? Not quite. It seems the stadium budget didn’t allow for an adequate number of bathrooms and concessions in proximity to the upper stands, leading to longer lines and thicker traffic on the lower concourse. Nor is there a canopy or overhang like those at MLS venues in Los Angeles and Carson. Popular in Europe, these features funnel crowd noise, unifying and amplifying sound, and they increase schedule versatility. (Perhaps SDFC chairman Mohamed Mansour can figure out a way to bring Snapdragon up to that MLS standard.)
As for the stadium experience’s MVP? That’s easy.
Varas’ club has outperformed its expansion status by leading the 15-team Western Conference through 24 matches. Anders Dreyer, a polished 27-year-old All-Star forward from Denmark, is worth a look even from snooty devotees of European teams. Dreyer has become both the club’s top player and a fan favorite, judging by the increased volume of cheers he’s receiving in introductions.
San Diego’s weather is another inducement for fans in one of the country’s least affordable cities to pay for soccer. Saturday night’s temperature was a comfortable 67 degrees.
Four regular-season home matches remain. A postseason match could follow.
Despite MLS’ quality being below that of several leagues in Europe and other places, there’s enough football talent in the world’s most popular sport that SDFC matches are proving an entertaining, professional addition to the local sports scene.
Thousands of locals are enjoying themselves. Isn’t that the point of playing the games?
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