Crowds don't bother Chivas USA players - The team is having its best season and is unbeaten at home, but attendance is down 39% from a year ago.
Chivas USA defender Lawson Vaughn says the guessing game starts during warm-ups about how low that day's attendance will be at the Home Depot Center in Carson.
"Then we come out and listen to the national anthem and we just see the crowd and no one is there," Vaughn said. "We have a chuckle, but we hope that the Legion is loud enough" to make up for the sparse crowd.
The Legion is the team's official fan group, but even its numbers are dwindling.
Chivas USA is enjoying its best season with a record of 12-6-4, third best in Major League Soccer, and is undefeated at home. But the club also has the biggest drop in home ticket sales of any MLS club.
Chivas averages 12,191 fans per home game this season, down 39% from a year ago, filling less than half the seats at the Home Depot Center. Last year's numbers were a bit inflated because Chivas was part of a doubleheader at the Coliseum that attracted more than 92,000 fans. Excluding that one game, Chivas' home ticket sales are still down 19%.
"For a player, it's very motivating to see a sellout crowd and have people act passionate about the game, but when we come out to warm up and we see the empty stadium it's as if people don't want to see us play," said Chivas captain Claudio Suarez.
"It's confusing, in some ways, because our team has been playing so well," midfielder Jesse Marsch said. "But I also know that the team is going through a bit of an identity crisis and [is] trying to figure out how to appeal to the mainstream Chivas fans but, also, to . . . mainstream soccer fans. It's not necessarily an easy equation."
One problem is that when Chivas came into the league in 2005, it seemed ready to copy the tradition of its parent club, Chivas de Guadalajara. One of the most storied soccer teams in Mexico, Guadalajara is equally beloved for playing only Mexican-born players.
In Chivas USA's first season, it fielded a club of mostly Mexican or Mexican American players, hoping to tap into L.A.'s soccer-hungry Latino market. Its players lacked MLS experience and Chivas finished last with a record of 4-22-6.
"More people, I think, came with the illusion of seeing a Mexican team. Things didn't work out for us on the field and I think that affected things a little," said midfielder Francisco Mendoza, who joined Chivas in 2005.
Since then, Chivas' roster has become more diverse and its play on the field has improved. But the team's marketing plan to target mainly Latino fans backfired as Chivas apparently alienated other potential fans.
