These are the (rounded off) average attendance numbers for the Islanders by year:

2006 was 5400
2007 was 4700
2008 was 4400
2009 was 3300

Can anyone in the know comment on the reasons for the trend we see? Is there hope that it will turn around? What do you think is the minimum number that lets the team carry on? (History shows that USL1 teams drawing below 4000 tend to get weeded out but perhaps PR is a bit different.)

More worrisome than your attendance is probably the travel expense for your island team.
How deep are the pockets of the ownership?

Miami attendance was probably in the 3 hundred range and they heading the charge into a new league. So I wouldn't worry about attendance numbers. 3300 is fairly strong in comparison to a lot of teams if it levels out there. You would expect a little drop after the novelty of a new team fades. Plus they have been competitive.

Of course you wouldn't. It's not your money.

The attendance numbers are critical especially because of the travel expense. Someone has to figure out how to put butts in seats (at a profit) or the team won't last forever unless their ownership views this as a fairly expensive hobby. Not sure what the revenue share for visiting teams is (if any), but I am sure the other league members would sure like to recoup their costs to some degree for the flight over. Their financial viability and their degree of tolerance among other teams in the league is driven in large degree by how many people will pay to see them play.

If I was them, I would make sure I have some possible answers and a plan to get more people to the games.

In an admmitedly oversimplified form, here is my take on what has taken place with the Islanders attendance since they enttered the league:

2004: Comped an amount of tickets that you couldn't comprehend if you don't take into account that they were trying to introduce professional soccer to a population that had very little or no experience with it.

2005: The comped a hell of a lot of tickets. Barely missed the playoffs. The team had a very Latin flavor and the fans were excited about the possibilities of what the club could do.

2006: They comped a hell of a lot of tickets but started to back off a bit. The club managed to squeak into the playoffs. That helped attendance. The last game couple of regular season games and the playoff game helped the attendance number. The final season game I attended there were 11K in attendance. Something that I never dreamed of seeing atttend a soccer match the first time I travelled into to Puerto Rico in '98.

2007: Comped even less. The squad's player quality had risen, largely thanks to Jorge Alvial, the ex-coach and GM who had left the season before for a job with Chelsea. The club managed to make it to the USL1 semis after Colin Clarke arrived to take the helm.

2008: Even less ticket comping (I think that you can see a pattern). The squad is winning games. They make a cinderella run in CONCACAF Champions League play. All of the sudden, "real" futbol clubs like Cruz Azul and Alajuela and Saprissa are coming to play games in Puerto Rico. Many fans start to complain about the style of football than General Clark employs and the lack of Latin flavor (this miss "futbol" and last names that reflect their Latin heritage). But the exitement allows people many of the disgruntled fans to get over the change in style and surnames of the club. Global Economic crisis starts to build mass. Puerto Rico, with a lower per capita income of even the poor state in the USA starts to feel the effects of the recession. The new Puerto Rican Pro Soccer League debuts. Now fans can see futbol (although on a clearly lower level than that of the USL1)for less and teams that overwhelmingly feature Puerto Rican and other Latino players for nothing or almost nothing ($5 a ticket).

2009: Economic crisis has gripped Puerto Rico. There are massive layoffs across different socio-ecomomic levels. (which took place in the USA but again, it is important to remember that Puerto Rico is on paper, poorer than any US state). A lot of people who were able to buy the very reasonably priced Islanders tickets (due to the economics, historically cheaper than every other USL1 club) are now just to pay their living expenses. The "wow" factor of the CONCACAF Champion's League play has started to lose it's luster. Fans disillusiond with the Clarke regime start to gripe more about the style of play and the lack of Latin players and identity. The PRSL is in it's second season. It is a much cheaper event to attend. Some of the disenchanted realize that the futbol is not as good but they like the fact that it is "Puerto Rican" an Latin. They can relate to it better. It is incredibly cheap entertainment. The league managed to get a game of the week on tv in PR and in the States via cable. The better PRSL matches featuring the elite clubs are very entertaining.

In the end, things in life almost always come back to the economics.

Schocker! I know.

Anyways, that is my worthless take. The assessment from Ole Yanki-Yank. Others will disagree. We argue about things over on the Spanish-language Islanders supporters sites. Sometimes even in the Puerto Rican Newspapers Electronic forums. So take my take for whatever little it's worth...

And, longterm, how has that worked out for them?

You don't make fans that way. You breed people who expect free tickets. If they're giving away fewer tickets than they did at first, that's great. You should always try to limit the number of tickets you give away. But once the genie is out of the bottle, it's hard to put it back in. Unless people see that something has value (and has value attached to it), they tend to think it's not worth paying for.

Also, it doesn't cost substantially more to fly from, say, Raleigh-Durham to San Juan than from Raleigh-Durham to Portland.

Plus, Miami FC can go by boat.

That answer is not so easy. We don't know how many of the 3300 average would be going games if they hadn't had the chance to see what the A-League/USL was all about. We are talking about someplace that has no real preofessional soccer tradition. The islanders attendance might be a lot lower than what it is now.

I agree that you usually do not make fans that way for precisely your reasoning...

Let me clarify.
I wouldn't worry about the attendance because relative to the rest of the league I wouldn't complain of an attendance in the 3000's. Not that I wouldn't worry about it completely.
Everyone knows that attendance numbers are ridiculously inflated. The attendance at a game may be 1500 but will be reported as 3500. Because of that and "comped" (sp) tickets, how much value can be put into those numbers?