Cardinals silent offseason has left fan interest at an all-time low

Despite the negativity surrounding the 2023 St. Louis Cardinals and their dreadful season, optimism abounded for the 2024 season. As the front office and ownership promised an offseason filled with "pitching, pitching, pitching" and delivered on that early on, excitement for the upcoming year was palpable while wandering the Busch Stadium concourse at Winter Warm-Up, the unofficial start to the season.

Optimistic fans lined Ballpark Village as the front office, coaches, and players were all on the same page: proving that 2023 was a fluke and bringing winning baseball back to the city of St. Louis. Admittedly, this was my first time attending the event, so I have no real benchmark for comparison, but I was in awe at just how many Cardinals fans showed up to support the team in the near-zero cold after the worst season I'd witnessed in my lifetime.

Despite my best efforts, I wasn't allowed media access last year. But, as a rookie podcaster and blogger, exploring the exhibitor hall and Authentics shop was overwhelming enough. It was surreal to meet viewers coming up to us expressing their appreciation for the content we made at Dealin' the Cards, or as it was known back then Noot News. However, I did have just a twinge of envy for Josh Jacobs, our site expert and co-host, who received media access to the event at no cost. So, I made it my goal to grow our platform so I'd be invited next year as well.

Fortunately, I was able to reach this goal and I'm forever grateful to the viewers and the Cardinals organization for recognizing the work I put into this passion project. However, instead of gaining free entry to the event, the only bonus I got was access to the media room. That's because everyone in the general public had free entry to Winter Warm-Up. The outlook had changed. Fan interest was gone.

While hard at work in the interview room, I didn't have much time to explore the event. However, during the time I spent in the exhibitor hall and at the main stage in Ballpark Village, I immediately noticed a shift in atmosphere compared to the previous event. There were fewer fans in attendance with free entry than the past year with paid entry, and the fans who did attend posed much more pointed questions to the front office executives and ownership than the year before. Additionally, when John Mozeliak, Bill DeWitt Jr., and Bill DeWitt III spoke to the media, there was a noticeable sense of urgency and concern regarding fan interest, perhaps for the first time ever.

Why is fan apathy beginning to surface now, though? The Cardinals had a winning record again, and the roster hasn't changed much this offseason, right? Though there was significant improvement between 2023 and 2024, the 83-win Cardinals failed to reach the Postseason once again and were out of contention by the start of September. In 2024, attendance dipped below 3 million fans for the first time in the DeWitt era, and it truly did appear that the team would rebuild for the first time in recent memory.

Honestly, I'm not fully sure why this is happening. There are probably multiple reasons for the increased fan apathy, most of which boil down to transparency between the front office, ownership, and the fans. We've gone from an offseason where the promises of three starting pitchers were delivered within a few weeks to an offseason where the promises of a youth movement and trades have amounted to absolutely nothing so far.

The Cardinals seem to be hanging on to a bygone era of the early 2010s. But, as the DeWitts reminisce upon a time when the Cardinals were competitive "recently" (they've won just one playoff series in the last decade) led by John Mozeliak, fans have moved on. All they see is a directionless club that's failed at player development and done nothing but disappoint in October. Preaching patience has grown stale. Change is happening, but it needs to happen faster.