TheNakedJimbo posted:

I wonder which city in the world has the worst total population to stadium size ratio. Charleston only has ~120,000 people in it. In order to fill a 20,000 seat stadium, 16% of the entire city would have to be at that game. Even if you factor in the whole metro area, which is about 550,000 people, the stadium seats about 4% of the city's population. Expecting that high a level of interest and involvement doesn't seem reasonable. (Pittsburgh filling an 18,500-seater would only be 0.7% of the population.)

The actual worst population-to-stadium ratio might be Villarreal, which has a 25,000-seat stadium in a ~225,000-person metro area.

Like, we all know instinctively that Charleston and El Paso are way too small to have MLS teams, but when you start looking at just what "way too small" means in the context of filling a stadium, it really gets sobering.