Jul 12, 2020; St. Louis, Missouri, United States; A view of empty seats as the St. Louis Cardinals play a simulated game at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-Imagn Images Jeff Curry-Imagn Images

Cardinals Finally Respond To Loud Fan Message; What's Next?

Originally posted on St. Louis Cardinals on SI
By Patrick McAvoy | Last updated Aug 18, 2025 2:00 PM ET

The St. Louis Cardinals began the 2025 Major League Baseball season as one of the darlings of the league.

There was virtually no expectations for St. Louis after an objectively weird offseason and yet the club came out of the gates swinging. St. Louis was well above .500 for a while and even looked like a playoff team for most of the first half of the season. The wheels fell off, though, and the Cardinals sold off ahead of the trade deadline and now have a 61-64 record.

Throughout the entire season -- even when the Cardinals were consistently winning -- one prevailing them has been a significant attendance drop. You definitely can see it now if you attend a Cardinals home game, but even early on when St. Louis looked like a playoff team, that was still the case. This is a trend that has emerged over the last few years as the Cardinals' dominance in the National League has ended. The Cardinals haven't spent big and fans have responded and haven't been attending.

How will Cardinals respond to recent fan outcry?

Brett Davis-Imagn Images

The team itself acknowledged this fact with Vice President for Ticket Sales Joe Strohm speaking with Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

"At the end of the day, it’s not where we want to be, so there’s work — there is work there to be done,” Strohm said to Goold. “That’s the one thing: 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...

"It’s one of those where if you’ve got a person who says, ‘I want to see what the team does before I make my decision,’ then it’s like it was before. You can wait until January. If you want to pay early and get a discount, that’s there for you as well."

There clearly has been a different feel at the ballpark over the last few years. In two of the last three seasons, the Cardinals have sold ahead of the trade deadline. It's certainly been a long time since that was the case. St. Louis is at a crossroads and Chaim Bloom will have the tall task of steering the organiztion out of it when he takes over as president of baseball operations.

This article first appeared on St. Louis Cardinals on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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