Cardinals’ Attendance is Down (and What That Means For Payroll)

Lower attendance means lower payroll.

Good morning, Viva El Birdos!

Attendance. Let’s talk about it.

We know it’s down this season. That’s been apparent in the stands all season long. Earlier in the summer there was some hope that once the weather warmed up, the schools let out, and the Cardinals started playing better the fans would come.

Has it happened? The simple answer is no.

As I write this on Friday afternoon, the Cardinals have played 58 games at home and 58 games on the road. That will prove convenient for our math here in a moment. They currently have a recorded “attendance” of 2,108,044. Baseball Reference records “attendance” as “tickets sold in home games.” It doesn’t matter for our purposes, but that’s the same number that gets announced at the games. It rarely is the actual number of people in the stands.

2,108,044 in 58 home games equals 36,345.5 in attendance per game on average. (The .5 is the one guy in the stands who never looks up from his phone.)

That’s a pretty large number of fans who paid to watch the Cardinals play in person relative to the rest of the sport. It’s a number that many other teams in baseball would be very jealous of.

It’s a very disappointing and troubling number for the Cardinals’ ownership.

If we project the Cardinals’ current attendance trend forward for the rest of the season, we reach a final 162/81 season attendance of 2.944M fans.

Almost 3 million.

3 million tickets sold has always been a kind of “magic number” that the Cardinals have talked about regarding attendance. That’s the number that the team wants to pack into Busc annually.

It’s probably better to talk about that not as “3 million” but as at least “3 million.” The Cardinals’ average annual attendance is significantly higher than 3 million.

Last year, the Cardinals had a bad year in the standings, if you didn’t know. They had a 71-91 record. They were hard to watch. They sold at the deadline. They put half their regulars on the IL at the end of the season. Still, the ‘23 team drew fairly well in terms of paid attendance. Their final recorded attendance was 3,241,091. 3.2M fans.

Do the math. That’s 300,000 more fans who bought tickets last year compared to current projections this season. Despite a significantly better record. And significant efforts to improve the team at the deadline.

That seems significant.

Going back a little further, the trend looks notably worse. Here is the Cardinals’ recorded attendance per season from Baseball Reference. I’ll list all the numbers down to the last season when the club drew less than 3.0M fans. (I won’t count either 2020 or 2021 when COVID impacted attendance figures and ticket availability.)

We have to go back to 2003 when the Cardinals, riding high expectations, only managed 85 wins and missed the playoffs. That team only drew just over 2.9M fans. Just under projections for this season.

That’s 20 years of consistently excellent attendance figures. Every season above 3 million. Pretty amazing! Cardinals fans are loyal. And tolerant. And forgiving. To a point.

Have they reached that “point?” It sure looks like it.

From 2014-2019, the Cardinals did not have below 3.40M in attendance in any season. That’s an impressive 41,975 tickets sold per game during that 6 season stretch. Just a few thousand per game below full capacity. Remarkable.

Back to the whole “3 million” thing. It’s more accurate to say that the Cardinals expect or project to draw somewhere between 3.2 and 3.5 million fans for their games every season.

Their current projection of 2.94 has them 12.2% below that pace, if I haven’t forgotten all my high school math.

That’s a lot of people missing. It’s also somewhat surprising considering the Cardinals are winning this season and have played pretty good baseball since early May. Except it’s not surprising, is it? Because we talked quite a bit about this exact scenario during the offseason.

I’ll let you debate why attendance is declining in the comments. It’s a subject that, while interesting to me, is more a matter of opinion than what I’m looking to do today.

Instead, I want to return to that offseason conversation and talk about what this kind of projected decline in attendance means for the Cardinals’ future payroll. Can we draw a direct parallel between ticket sales and payroll? Would a 10-12% drop in attendance equal a 10% drop in total gate revenue?

Likely not. We don’t have either the Cardinals’ budget numbers or the distribution of their ticket sales. That makes these kind of projections impossible. For example, if the Cardinals are still selling out their suites and expensive green seats at their normal rate but most of their missing tickets come from $15 outfield nosebleeds, revenue won’t drop that much. If it’s the opposite — and I don’t think it is — then revenue would tank.

The closest number we have to work with is average ticket price. Average ticket price for the Cardinals, according to a quick Google search, is $38.43.

Let’s apply that number to the club’s 2014-2019 attendance average of 41,975 per game. Based on Google’s average ticket price, the Cardinals would receive $1,613,099.25 in gross revenue per game.

That number drops in 2024 — with 36,345.5 fans — to $1,396,757.57 in gross revenue per game. That’s an operating loss of -$216,341.69 per game or -$17,523,676.49 over the course of a full season.

That’s an amount of money that the Cardinals aren’t likely to ignore.

Still, we can’t assume a 1-1 relationship between lost ticket revenue and payroll. This is just Google math. It’s not real. We’re using an internet average not the team’s real budget totals. The actual loss of revenue might be more than that. It might be less than that.

I would lean toward less. Quite a bit less. There are a hundred factors in this equation for which we just can’t account.

That’s a pretty lengthy exercise to reach a very minor point.

I’m only comfortable drawing a very broad conclusion regarding the impact of a decline in ticket sales on payroll. Here’s what I’ll commit to: It’s hard to see a significant drop in attendance (and 12.2% is a significant drop) not having a significant impact on the club’s spending next season.

That fits with what the club itself has told us. Didn’t Bill DeWitt III essentially say that payroll was tied to attendance? So, if attendance dropped — and it is — then payroll would have to drop as well.

Mo told me that the Cardinals have one “bucket” of revenue and expenses for all baseball operating costs. So, if there’s less coming into the bucket, then there’s less to come out of the bucket.

In the end, I think this whole situation is pretty straightforward. If attendance is down, and it is, then revenue will be down. And if revenue is down, then it’s likely that spending will be down as well.

How far down? That’s the 170-million-dollar question, isn’t it?

Payroll will probably not drop as low as that math exercise above would indicate. I’m certainly not going to project a 12.2% decrease in payroll to match a potnetial 12.2% decline in attendance. Neither am I going to project a payroll decrease of $17.5M even if the club’s revenue might be down that much relative to the presumed average. Both numbers seem too extreme to me.

This will come up again in the offseason, but for now I’m leaning toward a neutral payroll for 2025. Same next year as last year – about $170-175M for Opening Day by my calculation method.

Why a neutral payroll when I can show a real decline in revenue and a certain decline in ticket sales? One reason is that the Cardinals have typically increased payroll by 4-6% annually. That didn’t happen last year, but it’s been the case through most of the 2010s forward when attendance was normal or above and the team was routinely receiving a playoff boost.

This might seem odd to some of you but by not increasing payroll the team is actually decreasing payroll relative to the market and inflation. Not spending more is the same as spending less.

Plus, the Cardinals’ payroll expenses relative to the CBA and Luxury Tax will go up next season regardless of their spending. The CBA has built-in costs for teams and player benefits that are scheduled to increase regardless of revenue. So, even if they spend the same amount on players, they’re actually spending more on those players overall.

(Shakes head…) Confusing, isn’t it?

Mostly, I just don’t think that one (or perhaps two if we stretch the definition a little) year of declining ticket sales would precipitate a significant change in operating philosophy for the Cardinals. They plan things out. Years in advance. Especially since a relatively high percentage of their roster is set for next year, including most of the rotation and lineup. There’s only so many places they can cut even if they wanted to.

An even payroll or perhaps a slight decline seems to be the most likely scenario. But if the ticket situation gets worse after 2025, I think we could see a more pronounced change.

Another factor in this is the Bally TV contract. That will have an impact on spending, but we don’t know which way it will go yet. Until we have a resolution to that, I’m just going to consider it an important but unknown factor. Gut feeling is that the conservative Cardinals are going to assume there will be a loss of revenue from TV even if they get their ideal solution.

I’ll probably talk myself into a payroll decline by the end of the season. For now, though, I’m sticking with neutral. $170M. For the third season in a row.

In the meantime, this is one of those rare scenarios where there is actually something you can do. As fans, the Cardinal’s future payroll is somewhat in our hands. Or, perhaps, in our butts.

The more of us that head to the ballpark between now and the end of September, the more money the Cardinals can put into payroll.

Let’s hope the Cardinals give fans a reason to show up. A few exciting months – ones that defy what they’ve done so far – could get the club back to their previous expectations. 23 more home games with 43,000 fans instead of 37,000 fans would put the club around 3.2M in paid attendance on the season. That could make the difference in adding a player next season. Or not.

I think this is what Bill DeWitt was trying (poorly) to tell us.

So, go to a game this weekend! Buy a hot dog or two. Enjoy Busch.

Oh, and Cardinals… Just start winning! Give us a reason to spend our hard-earned money on your product.

Happy Saturday, Viva El Birdos.