72,035 fans came to the Mercedes-Benz stadium for the season home-opener
Atlanta FC versus D.C. United will stay in the books as the largest single game crowd in MLS history to inaugurate the 2018 MLS season. The new records tops last year’s attendance of 71,874 also accomplished by Atlanta FC.
This is wonderful number showing MLS have reached another level of fandom in the United States. In particular, Atlanta is a major market and MLS compete with other major sport teams in the city.
MLS is growing, expanding and attracting more fans to the stadium. Atlanta FC are the perfect example to follow for teams bidding to be the next franchise.
Not only the location is important but the demographics and specificities of the mark are more important to succeed. A pack stadium will only trigger more attraction and potentially drive up ticket, sponsorships and merchandizing revenues.
Atlanta win 3-1
Following the 4-0 rout in Houston, Atlanta FC had to respond and they did today as the coach Martino comments:
“Against Houston I thought we were lacking bodies in the midfield and the ability to recover the ball in the midfield. We thought it was a good chance to try it today and I think we did a good job for the first 75 minutes of the game and then we let off a little bit in the last 15.
the message is to continuously try and be better every day. In this club in general, we’re striving for excellence so we’re looking for excellence from the directors, from the coaches, from the players we sign, to how the team plays.
it was important and interesting to see the response that we got from the team because we knew that was going to be important coming off the game against Houston where we made a lot of mistakes. We talked about how most of their goals – or all of their goals – from last week came from individual mistakes so we wanted to see the guys play with motivation today, and I think they did that. And credit to them because they did it in a new formation.
I think the team, after the game we had in Houston, the team picked itself up. Coming off a 4-0 loss and now playing at home we had to forget everything that happened. I think we had a very good first half. We started the second half a little asleep but the important thing is that we won and the three points stayed at home.
I just want to say thank you to everybody for coming today and for the support. That is important for us.”
