The St. Louis Cardinals will finish August at least 10 games behind the NL Central-leading Milwaukee Brewers, and that means a record number of empty seats at Busch Stadium.
According to the local NBC affiliate, the Cards' poor performance has made tickets to home games worthless, with hundreds of tickets for Wednesday's game available on StubHub for free.
As of 9 a.m. Thursday, tickets for St. Louis' game at 1:15 p.m. versus the San Diego Padres were available for $1 on SeatGeek and StubHub.
Kristen Bowen made the trip from Iowa, but still managed to enjoy the game in 100-degree heat.
“It was awesome. It was a really awesome experience,” Bowen said but noted that there were a lot of Padres fans in the stands.
The team announced it sold more than 27,000 tickets to Tuesday night’s game, but multiple sources close to the team NBC that fewer than half actually made it through the turnstiles.
“The number I understand was closer to 12,000,” 101ESPN host Tim McKernan said. “Every game they’re playing of late, they’re breaking what was like a 24-hour low record of lowest attendance in Busch Stadium III history.”
Busch Stadium has a capacity of 46,000.
McKernan said sagging attendance numbers are a direct result of poor messaging by the organization.
“I think there’s been a feeling of the emotional and financial investment that fans have made has not been reciprocated by the organization,” McKernan said.
“We were told last offseason that the 71-win season, the losing season, was a one-off,” Randy Karraker of 101ESPN said. “There were full expectations of getting back to the playoffs and going deep into October in 2024.”
“I get the sense that Cardinal fans either feel like they’re being lied to, or they’re being treated like they don’t know any better,” McKernan said. “This market has educated baseball fans and that messaging gets tiring.”
