The St. Louis Cardinals start the final series of the regular season at home against the Reds Monday evening.
The Cardinals are on pace to draw just over 3,250,000 in home attendance this year, the sixth highest in all of baseball and the 14th time in the last 15 years the Redbirds have exceeded the lofty 3 million benchmark.
Joe Strohm is the Cardinals Vice President of ticket sales. Considering St. Louis ranks 24th out of 30, in terms of media-market size, its yearly position near the top in terms of ticket sales is a testament to the devotion of fans.
“The ones ahead of us are Philadelphi, New York, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Francisco, those are large markets and have the St. Louis market to be in the same conversation from an attendance standpoint is really amazing,” says Strohm.
The defending World Series champion Cardinals have been selling an average of 2,000 more tickets per game over last year, even after losing megastar Albert Pujols.
Thanks to baseball’s new expanded wildcard system the Redbirds are once again vying for a playoff berth.
In addition to being fun for fans, last years’ run to the World Series Championship was also a welcome economic boon for the city.
“The City of St. Louis was actually going to have to furlough some employees,” said Strohm, “but because of the additional tax revenue from post season they didn’t have to do that.”
If and when the Cardinals clinch a playoff spot, they will play a one-game elimination against the Atlanta Braves in Atlanta.
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