ST. LOUIS – At risk of missing postseason for a third straight year, the St. Louis Cardinals are currently on pace for their lowest attendance mark in three decades.
Through 65 homes games, the Cardinals have generated a total attendance of 1,873,875, based on the metric of tickets sold. Right now, that’s an average attendance of around 28,829.
If that pace remains similar through the regular season’s end, the Cardinals are on pace for a season attendance of roughly 2,335,137.
That would mark the team’s lowest for a non-pandemic-restricted season since 1995, when the Cardinals drew a season attendance of 1,756,727. That season? The Cardinals only played 72 home games due to MLB scheduling arrangements out of a players strike and would have paced for around 1,976,318 in attendance.
Every completed and comparable 81-game home season since then, the Cardinals’ final regular season attendance surpassed at least 2.6 million. And 21 times since the turn of the century, the Cardinals have drawn at attendance of at least 3 million.
For comparison, here’s a closer look at Cardinals attendance trends over the last four seasons without pandemic restrictions…
| YEAR | SEASON ATTENDANCE | AVERAGE ATTENDANCE | SINGLE-SEASON CHANGE |
| 2022 | 3,320,551 | 40,994 | N/A |
| 2023 | 3,241,091 | 40,013 | -2.4% |
| 2024 | 2,878,115 | 35,532 | -11.1% |
| 2025 | 2,335,137 (Current Pace) | 28,829 | -18.75% |
For another point of comparison, every other eligible season at Busch Stadium III (from 2006 to 2019), the Cardinals have finished with at least 3.09 million in regular season attendance and 38,000 on average.
This season’s attendance drops recently became magnified during last weekend’s home series against the New York Yankees, arguably MLB’s most historic franchise, when the Cardinals barely averaged above 30,000 fans per game, including a mark of 25,365 in the series finale.
The team’s single-game worst attendance mark this season and current record low? That was April 2 against the Los Angeles Angels with an attendance mark of 20,309.
In both cases, weather may have played a small role. The Angels game was played around cooler temperatures and significant spring storms in the St. Louis area. The Yankees series, meanwhile, took place under a prolonged heat advisory with temperatures approaching triple-digits for all three games.
However, it appears other factors beyond day-to-day matchups and weather appear to be influencing attendance.
The Cardinals endured a relatively-rare losing season in 2023, following the retirements of legends Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina. And for much of the last two seasons, 2024 and 2025, they have mostly hovered around the .500 mark, better than MLB’s worst teams, but usually not enough to make postseason.
The limited success in recent years, to extents, even stretches back before that. The Cardinals have won just one postseason series over the last decade, and the team could be in jeopardy of its second three-year stretch without playoff baseball in that same stretch, which also occurred from 2016 to 2018.
Ahead of this season, Cardinals ownership (Bill DeWitt Jr. and Bill DeWitt II) and lead executive (John Mozeliak) were open about plans to build around a youth-driven roster with reduced payroll, part of a gradual front-office succession plan that involves Chaim Bloom taking charge after the 2025 season.
In short-term, the result has been a middle-of-the-pack team for much of the 2025 season without a clear path toward contention or rebuilding. It’s a scenario that can certainly make it difficult to generate enthusiasm.
And coincidentally, fan frustrations seem to be growing, not only reflected through attendance figures, but also through audible boos of Mozeliak and the DeWitts at the 2025 home opener.
So how do the Cardinals try to change course?
According to Derrick Goold, lead Cardinals writer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the team’s vice president of ticket sales, Joe Strohm, recently acknowledged the attendance decline and the challenges that come with winning fans back. He said, “Fans have a right to voice their pleasure or displeasure, and we know there is work to get people back. We have to earn them back. That’s the entertainment industry. You’ve got to earn people’s discretionary income.”
Reviving attendance for this season could be challenging, but the Cardinals did notice a slight attendance bump in the Aug. 8-10 weekend matchup against the Cubs (average 34,680). That weekend included a surprise visit from Yadier Molina to serve as a guest coach, a fresh reminder that alumni engagement could help reconnect fans down the stretch.
Another short-term spark could come if an exciting prospect, say JJ Wetheholt, gets promoted before the season’s end. Wetherholt, the Cardinals’ 2023 first-round pick, has impressed in his first full minor-league season, hitting .299 with 16 home runs and 51 RBIs between Triple-A Memphis and Double-A Springfield.
Of course, the Cardinals will likely be cautious with Wetherholt’s development, and the team’s infield logjam at the MLB level may complicate matters. But giving Wetherholt some late-season experience could help him adjust to big-league pitching next year, if he is deemed ready for a large MLB role in 2026, while also giving fans hope the Cardinals can develop rising stars from within. It’s unclear where exactly the Cardinals stand on a possible Wetherholt promotion before the season’s end.
Regardless, much of the work to rebuild attendance will ultimately come in the longer term. Incoming President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom will have to decide whether to maintain the current youth-driving approach or reshape the roster with fresh blood. Adding impact players could signal a commitment to contending, while selective trades could be a sign of moves that align with the franchise’s longer-term plans to create a strong, attendance-driving product.
Whatever the future holds, attendance will be worth monitoring closely before the Cardinals’ 2025 regular season comes to an end.
The Cardinals, now 63-65, begin a three-game road series against the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday. After that, the Cardinals return to Busch Stadium for a four-game home series against the Pittsburgh Pirates.
And after that, the Cardinals only have two more homestands of six games each in September. The home portion of the regular season will close on Sept. 21 against the Milwaukee Brewers while the 2025 regular season ends on Sept. 28 against the Chicago Cubs.