St. Louis Cardinals: ‘8,000-12,000’ fans expected at Busch in 2021

In the past few weeks, St. Louis Cardinals fans have slowly been able to see the 2021 season come into view. Even though the team hasn’t done anything yet to help the product on the field, many are wondering if and when fans will be able to make Busch Stadium seem more like home again.

What we know so far from the Blues has told us that the city of St. Louis will allow some fans. The MLB then announced their overarching guidelines for what they will mandate for the 2021 season. What these both set up was that each team would be able to set their own guidelines for attendance and abide by their city’s current recommendations.

In a recent interview, Bill DeWitt Jr. put a little more structure around just what the Cardinals are expecting out of fan attendance this season. According to the interview and the article written by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch on this same issue, the plan is to allow in 8,000-12,000 fans initially.

Goold sites that because of the “geometry” of the ballpark, selling tickets in pods will keep capacity at around “28%” for the first part of the season. The interesting thing is that it might end up being 28% capacity until it can be full capacity. There is a lot of space needed for social distancing and to keep things within health protocols, so until health officials and the MLB send out clearance sfor teams to go to full capacity, 28% capacity might be the best the team can do.

For the tickets that will be sold, Goold reports that season ticket holders will be first in line to purchase them, a decision that makes a lot of sense. It’s unclear if the limited supply of tickets is going to jump up the price, but if nothing else, having fans in the stands is going to be a welcome sight.

The team is expecting less than 1,000 fans per game at Roger Dean Stadium for spring training as well.

While 12,000 fans aren’t a ton, it’ll be a beautiful sight to see fans back in the stands at Busch. More details are sure to come out in the next month, but for now this is great news.