The St. Louis Cardinals set another record for low attendance on Tuesday night vs. the Athletics at Busch Stadium.
17,002 tickets were reportedly sold, marking the lowest announced attendance for a Cardinals game since the current version of Busch Stadium opened in 2006, per St. Louis Public Radio.
St. Louis still earned a hard-fought 2-1 victory against the A’s, but its season has been anything but exciting. With a mediocre 70-71 record, the Redbirds will likely miss the postseason for the third straight year.
The Cardinals’ attendance woes
Oh, how the Cardinals have fallen.
From 2006 to 2019, St. Louis averaged more than 38,000 fans a game each season, with a high of 43,854 in 2007, per Baseball Reference. The COVID-19 pandemic led to lower attendance in 2021, but the Cardinals returned to averaging more than 40,000 fans the next two years.
But this season? St. Louis averages 27,862 fans per game, which—not counting the pandemic-influenced 2021 season—is its lowest mark since 1995 (24,399). Even still, that was a shortened season due to the 1994 baseball strike that wasn’t resolved until late April of 1995.
So yeah, the Cardinals' attendance this season has been historically low.
But the team is trying to bring more people to Busch Stadium, which ranked second in Major League Baseball in ticket sales from 2013 to 2022, per STLPR. How? Here’s what Jonathan Ahl of STLPR writes:
“The team has acknowledged the play on the field falls below fans’ expectations and has tried to implement new features to improve the game day experience and discounted season tickets for next year.”
That might help, but if St. Louis really wants to solve its attendance woes, it’ll have to create a better product on the field.