ST. LOUIS — Opening Day for the St. Louis Cardinals will look much different this year.
The Cardinals will begin Major League Baseball’s shortened 60-game season on Friday, July 24, at Busch Stadium in a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. And there won’t be any fans in the stands.
Without crowds at Busch Stadium, Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III said Friday he sees the adjacent Ballpark Village entertainment district as providing a place where baseball can gather during the season. Ballpark Village said Friday it will have several areas open during the season to “enjoy a gameday experience” and that it will sell a limited number of tickets for home games for the Budweiser Brew House Bud Deck Rooftop, which looks into Busch Stadium.
Meanwhile, the Cardinals continue to work on a plan that would allow a limited number of fans inside the stadium at some point.
“We have a plan that’s almost ready to go that would bring fans in and do all the things we need to do to keep them safe,” said DeWitt III. "It will be ready to go, and if we can have them, we will."
The Business Journal on Friday spoke to DeWitt about the team's plans for the upcoming season. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The upcoming season, for now, won’t include fans inside Busch Stadium. How crucial is Ballpark Village in letting fans still experience the season near the stadium? We have an opportunity to really create an atmosphere and a vibe down here that complements what is going on in the stadium. Cardinals Nation will be open next week. We can spread some people out on the rooftop. We can spread them out on the plaza that’s outside of (recently opened sports pub) Sports & Social. We think it’s a great environment for people to come down and be close to the action and see it on TV. And feel it, because you hear the fireworks on a home run and the in-game audio and things of that nature.
Fans may want to be around Busch Stadium during games, but you can only have so many people at Ballpark Village because of social distancing. How are you planning to manage that balance? I think it starts with your venue management. Sports & Social has now been operating for several weeks and they are doing a good job of making sure everyone has a mask if they come into the restaurant. When we have tables outside, they are spaced out. That will be true of all the venues that are open. If there’s huge crowds that are together more than they should be, that would be an issue that I think our security would help try to disperse. But I don’t think that is going to happen because there’s really nowhere to get an unobstructed view of the game at street level. There’d be no reason to gather that closely, for example, up against the fence.
You’ve mentioned previously that opening day was supposed to act as a grand opening celebration of the $260 million Ballpark Village phase 2 expansion. Do you see this launch of the new season as now being that grand opening? Not totally like that, because a grand opening to me is as many people that want to come, they come down within health code occupancy type of numbers. I think probably that’s going to have to wait until next year’s opening day. That doesn’t mean we can’t get everybody down here in a way to come to one of the restaurants or one of the ballgames and watch it on the big screen outside. I do think it will be more of a soft opening that will expose everybody to phase 2, but we will gear up for next spring with some additional retail opening and it will have all the momentum for the big bang we were hoping for this spring.
Click here for the full interview.
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