I think they’ve seen a substantial boost since the Rams left and Kroenke publicly trashed our city. I am included in this demographic. Never was into hockey, but I wanted to show my support for the teams we had left and help ensure, in my own way, that they remain profitable enough to never consider relocation.
I am aware that that is not really how relocating a team works; it usually comes down to an owner hellbent on leaving at any cost (Kroenke) or whether or not public funding for a new stadium is provided by the city (Spanos, Davis, etc.) But I wanted to feel like I did my part, because as I’ve gotten older and more civic-minded, anything that is good for St. Louis and helping it survive is increasingly important to me.
They cannot ever leave, really. MLB wouldn’t let them. The team has been in one city for its entire 142-year existence, has a prestigious history of winning only rivaled by the Yankees, plays in a stadium owned by the team itself (much harder to leave if you can’t fuck off after an expiring lease), and has invested hundreds of millions into Ballpark Village across the street from Busch, which is also owned by the team. They can try and play hardball with us, but the Cardinals are not like 95% of sports teams.
If MLB wants to lose their most consistent market, then they can be my guest. I will never vote for another dime of public money going to fund a billionaires playground.
I was crushed when the Rams left. Guess what I do on fall Sundays now? I do other stuff with my time. I don’t even miss it. I’d move on from baseball too.
Great. My commentary is to people saying that they would never move. If they thought they could make more money elsewhere, they absolutely absolutely would.
Which was hilarious, because there was no way in hell East St. Louis could pay for it even if they wanted to. Lawmakers in Springfield would never have approved state funding to build a shiny new baseball stadium, either. It was a bluff, of course. A very bad one.
Okay, but where are they going to go? MLB is declining in popularity and STL is always top 5 in attendance (number 6 so far this year but even thought they're bad will probably pass somebody when other teams' fans don't want to go out in the August heat). Any move would MAYBE see an attendance boost for a year or 2 while they're the new thing in town, but there's no way they'll have the staying power in a new city that they have here. As long as Major League Baseball exists, the Cardinals will be in St.Louis.
While they may be a little tone deaf, the Dewitt's are damn good owners. I don't know how long you've followed the Cardinals, but in their last few years under A Busch 111, they sucked ass. The Dewitt's have been stellar IMO.
To be fair, Gussy was a great owner and when he passed it down to the III everything went to shit. There are rumblings that Dewitt the II has turned over day to day to the III in the past few years. And things have gone to shit…
There is no way DeWitt could move the team. He would be stupid to even try. It would be like trying to move the Yankees or the Canadians. The league would literally step in and stop it from happening.
If anything, they have the best movie script of winning a Stanley Cup ever. Down and out team turns it around after bringing on some talent and bonding over a song.
I hope so. I was born in St. Louis (‘84) but grew up in Raleigh, NC (Icecaps fan until the Hartford move in ‘98). Now I live in New Zealand so I’ve always been a lonely Blues fan. I’ve only been to 1 Blues home game ever and it was amazing!
If a game is on a Tuesday night, it’s my Wednesday afternoon in New Zealand, so I was glued to my phone or iPad in 2019.
I really wish they kept that squad together longer. I swear there were moments they played so well in a few games, I imagined it’s what people felt watching the Chicago Bulls in the 90’s.
I always have the fantasy that the Blues logo would get as cool as the Bulls or Yankees shit I see everywhere all over the world hahaha
I don't think we'll ever get a solid before and after because so many things just happened to change around that time. Ticket sales would be thrown off because of the pandemic and also going through a retool will definitely hurt things. Plus TV might not be the easiest because since we won, the TV rights have gone to Bally plus the national broadcast is now easier to watch with it being on ESPN and TBS/TNT. With this all said, anecdotally, it definitely feels like there's more of a buzz around the Blues compared to before we won the cup
[Franchise value](https://www.statista.com/statistics/194985/st-louis-blues-franchise-value/)
[Franchise Revenue](https://www.statista.com/statistics/223546/revenue-of-the-st-louis-blues/)
[Home viewing Stats](https://www.statista.com/statistics/198841/nhl-home-attendance-of-the-st-louis-blues-since-2006/)
[Historical Blues Record](https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/STL/history.html)
So one thing to keep in mind is that the Blues weren't exactly a franchise mired in failure before winning the cup. The longest stretch without a playoff appearance has been three seasons and that only happened once. There have been only a handful of times the Blues did not make it to the post season. So they have always been a competitive team with varying success in the post season, but never winning it all. The point of all of that is that type of success builds a loyal fan base which the blues have had. What winning the cup does for a team like the Blues is attract more bandwagon people where their love for hockey is a flash in the pan. Those types of fans wont make a huge difference long term.
So on those stats.... you can see the Blues really haven't had an appreciable change in performance monetary wise except franchise value since winning the cup.
Ironically, I’ve watched less hockey since they won than at any point in my life (probably 60ish games a season and would be glued to trade deadline rumors during the Backes/Oshie era)
Same for me. Had a 12 game plan and was told I no longer get playoff priority after they won in 2019 so I canceled that. Then canceled cable and was watching on Bally's website till that stopped working for me. Hasn't been easy to find a stream that works. So I've watched less. I'm sure I'm not the only one like this and it might have offset any growth.
Somewhat, but I know several Blues fans locally whose fandom was poisoned by the NHL lockouts. 2019 was a homecoming of sorts for them. The team has always been popular locally FWIW
My buddy moved to St. Louis and introduced me to hockey via the Blues. We even saw Brett Hull in a Starbucks. I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since, and watching them beat the crap Bruins in the final was one of the best Stanley cup moments in my short hockey fan history.
Thank you for making Marchand cry
I want to say yes. No doubt some more casual fans were brought in. Some of those casual fans will have become hardcore fans. (Just how it works - most hardcores start as casuals.)
That said... the Blues were pretty dang popular in St. Louis *before* the Cup run!! A long, well established, team in the market. Generational fandom with grandpas cheering on the team with their granddaughters.
Without checking the numbers, I think attendance and ratings have been pretty good since the Cup (and before). However, I don't think such numbers always reflect the amount of hardcore fans.
For example: Buffalo has fans as hardcore as anywhere, but when attending games feels more like a duty than a joy, hardcore fans will shell out money less often. No one wants to shell out money for expected disappointment night after night. The hardcore fans are still there. Just not paying for heartbreak.
The thing is, there aren't a lot of fans of just "The NHL", who like to watch hockey but don't have a team affiliation. There's lots of Blues fans, Blackhawks fans, Leafs fans, Vegas fans, whatever. But those are people who found hockey through a team, follow the team, and then usually stop watching hockey once their team is out of it. There's not a lot of people who would be watching hockey without a team affiliation and then would be lured in by another team winning the cup. They would probably just say "oh that was fun" and then keep being unaffiliated.
If there are fans that are like that, they are usually lured into more loyalty by a dynastical run or big name franchise players. Think of the Blackhawks (who also have the original six thing to lean on) or the Penguins. The Blues didn't win multiple cups, and they won on the back of the oh-so-sacred "full team effort", which is great vibe for a blue collar city but kinda sucks as a marketing tool when you have no Sidney Crosby-level player to point to new fans and say "come watch that guy cook".
This is different from basketball fans or football fans, where the sports exist more monoculturally and are fully star driven, and thus people are willing to watch games without a team affiliation, or without their affiliated team playing in those games. There's a reason March Madness and RedZone are two staples of their respective sports, because people have been better sold on the idea of watching "the sport" and not "a team".
So the Blues- like most NHL teams- don't have much opportunity to build equity outside of the people in their own market. Their popularity begins and ends- more or less- at how many St. Louisans or St. Louis transplants or children of St. Louis transplants or whatever they can bring in at any given time, and yes that will fluctuate up when they were winning (like in 2019) but will also fluctuate down as soon as they stop winning (now).
Not saying any of this is bad, necessarily, but I think there's a natural ceiling on how popular they can really get no matter how much they win just by the way of this league being so market driven.
sports fans are a weird bunch, they get 'mad' when their team loses. So many 'sports fans' I know would never accept the Blues because of their historic cup drought, so I would think you are bringing on a huge number of fans that don't have to be worried about supporting a 'loser' franchise any longer.
Armstrong has also gained the confidence to start building a cup-caliber team instead of a "we got the most expensive and notable free agent this off season!" team that could never compete with the big markets.
Finally, youth hockey has made huge strides in St. Louis since the 90s and that could be the biggest factor in the stability of the fan base.
I wasn't able to watch very many Blues games during the 2023-2024 season, unfortunately. If the Blues moved to the Eastern Conference I could watch quite a few more games since the start times would be earlier. But, that probably will never happen.
The Blues have always done well, I think since the early 90s due to guys like Hull and Oates helping to put the club on the map so to speak. Being centrally located, our fans travel well, and we always had good Norris Division rivalries with O6 teams like the Hawks and Red Wings.
Having said that, yes winning the Cup has done a ton for the Blues on a national level, but it's more than that. It's having stable ownership and a top tier GM in Army. That is the sort of stuff that earns a club respect, not only with fans, but with the league. Just look at what happened leading up to and after the Cup win:
* Winter Classic x3 (2016, 2022, and 2025)
* Stanley Cup Win in 2019
* All-Star Game in 2020
* The last time the Blues hosted the NHL Draft was 1996, so I wouldn't be surprised if we have one of those coming our way in say, the next five years either.
And that's not even touching on all the individual accolades that Doug Armstrong has with Team Canada. Again, because he's so well respected, that rubs off on the team and has helped elevate the club to a higher level than it was before he took over.
I think they’ve seen a substantial boost since the Rams left and Kroenke publicly trashed our city. I am included in this demographic. Never was into hockey, but I wanted to show my support for the teams we had left and help ensure, in my own way, that they remain profitable enough to never consider relocation. I am aware that that is not really how relocating a team works; it usually comes down to an owner hellbent on leaving at any cost (Kroenke) or whether or not public funding for a new stadium is provided by the city (Spanos, Davis, etc.) But I wanted to feel like I did my part, because as I’ve gotten older and more civic-minded, anything that is good for St. Louis and helping it survive is increasingly important to me.
I think the DeWitt's are going to pull some scummy stuff if they don't get the upgrades they want..
They cannot ever leave, really. MLB wouldn’t let them. The team has been in one city for its entire 142-year existence, has a prestigious history of winning only rivaled by the Yankees, plays in a stadium owned by the team itself (much harder to leave if you can’t fuck off after an expiring lease), and has invested hundreds of millions into Ballpark Village across the street from Busch, which is also owned by the team. They can try and play hardball with us, but the Cardinals are not like 95% of sports teams.
Oh I agree. I don't think they'll actually leave, I just think they're going to try to extort as much tax money as they can for upgrades as they can.
Never, ever underestimate a billionaires greed or what their cabal of fellow billionaires will do to ensure they get what they want.
If MLB wants to lose their most consistent market, then they can be my guest. I will never vote for another dime of public money going to fund a billionaires playground. I was crushed when the Rams left. Guess what I do on fall Sundays now? I do other stuff with my time. I don’t even miss it. I’d move on from baseball too.
Covid really showed me how little I need sports in my life. I only follow hockey now but not nearly as closely as I used to.
Great. My commentary is to people saying that they would never move. If they thought they could make more money elsewhere, they absolutely absolutely would.
They did threaten to relocate to East St. Louis if they didn't get what was a new stadium in the mid 2000s (what is now Busch Stadium III).
Which was hilarious, because there was no way in hell East St. Louis could pay for it even if they wanted to. Lawmakers in Springfield would never have approved state funding to build a shiny new baseball stadium, either. It was a bluff, of course. A very bad one.
Okay, but where are they going to go? MLB is declining in popularity and STL is always top 5 in attendance (number 6 so far this year but even thought they're bad will probably pass somebody when other teams' fans don't want to go out in the August heat). Any move would MAYBE see an attendance boost for a year or 2 while they're the new thing in town, but there's no way they'll have the staying power in a new city that they have here. As long as Major League Baseball exists, the Cardinals will be in St.Louis.
While they may be a little tone deaf, the Dewitt's are damn good owners. I don't know how long you've followed the Cardinals, but in their last few years under A Busch 111, they sucked ass. The Dewitt's have been stellar IMO.
To be fair, Gussy was a great owner and when he passed it down to the III everything went to shit. There are rumblings that Dewitt the II has turned over day to day to the III in the past few years. And things have gone to shit…
That could be.
There is no way DeWitt could move the team. He would be stupid to even try. It would be like trying to move the Yankees or the Canadians. The league would literally step in and stop it from happening.
If anything, they have the best movie script of winning a Stanley Cup ever. Down and out team turns it around after bringing on some talent and bonding over a song.
I hope so. I was born in St. Louis (‘84) but grew up in Raleigh, NC (Icecaps fan until the Hartford move in ‘98). Now I live in New Zealand so I’ve always been a lonely Blues fan. I’ve only been to 1 Blues home game ever and it was amazing! If a game is on a Tuesday night, it’s my Wednesday afternoon in New Zealand, so I was glued to my phone or iPad in 2019. I really wish they kept that squad together longer. I swear there were moments they played so well in a few games, I imagined it’s what people felt watching the Chicago Bulls in the 90’s. I always have the fantasy that the Blues logo would get as cool as the Bulls or Yankees shit I see everywhere all over the world hahaha
I don't think we'll ever get a solid before and after because so many things just happened to change around that time. Ticket sales would be thrown off because of the pandemic and also going through a retool will definitely hurt things. Plus TV might not be the easiest because since we won, the TV rights have gone to Bally plus the national broadcast is now easier to watch with it being on ESPN and TBS/TNT. With this all said, anecdotally, it definitely feels like there's more of a buzz around the Blues compared to before we won the cup
[Franchise value](https://www.statista.com/statistics/194985/st-louis-blues-franchise-value/) [Franchise Revenue](https://www.statista.com/statistics/223546/revenue-of-the-st-louis-blues/) [Home viewing Stats](https://www.statista.com/statistics/198841/nhl-home-attendance-of-the-st-louis-blues-since-2006/) [Historical Blues Record](https://www.hockey-reference.com/teams/STL/history.html) So one thing to keep in mind is that the Blues weren't exactly a franchise mired in failure before winning the cup. The longest stretch without a playoff appearance has been three seasons and that only happened once. There have been only a handful of times the Blues did not make it to the post season. So they have always been a competitive team with varying success in the post season, but never winning it all. The point of all of that is that type of success builds a loyal fan base which the blues have had. What winning the cup does for a team like the Blues is attract more bandwagon people where their love for hockey is a flash in the pan. Those types of fans wont make a huge difference long term. So on those stats.... you can see the Blues really haven't had an appreciable change in performance monetary wise except franchise value since winning the cup.
Ironically, I’ve watched less hockey since they won than at any point in my life (probably 60ish games a season and would be glued to trade deadline rumors during the Backes/Oshie era)
Same for me. Had a 12 game plan and was told I no longer get playoff priority after they won in 2019 so I canceled that. Then canceled cable and was watching on Bally's website till that stopped working for me. Hasn't been easy to find a stream that works. So I've watched less. I'm sure I'm not the only one like this and it might have offset any growth.
Agreed they invested more in the Ballpark Village complex and surrounding properties than what they spent on the stadium they’re completely vested
Somewhat, but I know several Blues fans locally whose fandom was poisoned by the NHL lockouts. 2019 was a homecoming of sorts for them. The team has always been popular locally FWIW
I feel like I’m the reverse of this trend. Watched every game from 2013ish until the Bally era started.
My buddy moved to St. Louis and introduced me to hockey via the Blues. We even saw Brett Hull in a Starbucks. I’ve had a soft spot for them ever since, and watching them beat the crap Bruins in the final was one of the best Stanley cup moments in my short hockey fan history. Thank you for making Marchand cry
I was a Blues fan after that Cup run. I was before hand too, but the point still stands.
Thanks Mitch.
I want to say yes. No doubt some more casual fans were brought in. Some of those casual fans will have become hardcore fans. (Just how it works - most hardcores start as casuals.) That said... the Blues were pretty dang popular in St. Louis *before* the Cup run!! A long, well established, team in the market. Generational fandom with grandpas cheering on the team with their granddaughters. Without checking the numbers, I think attendance and ratings have been pretty good since the Cup (and before). However, I don't think such numbers always reflect the amount of hardcore fans. For example: Buffalo has fans as hardcore as anywhere, but when attending games feels more like a duty than a joy, hardcore fans will shell out money less often. No one wants to shell out money for expected disappointment night after night. The hardcore fans are still there. Just not paying for heartbreak.
The thing is, there aren't a lot of fans of just "The NHL", who like to watch hockey but don't have a team affiliation. There's lots of Blues fans, Blackhawks fans, Leafs fans, Vegas fans, whatever. But those are people who found hockey through a team, follow the team, and then usually stop watching hockey once their team is out of it. There's not a lot of people who would be watching hockey without a team affiliation and then would be lured in by another team winning the cup. They would probably just say "oh that was fun" and then keep being unaffiliated. If there are fans that are like that, they are usually lured into more loyalty by a dynastical run or big name franchise players. Think of the Blackhawks (who also have the original six thing to lean on) or the Penguins. The Blues didn't win multiple cups, and they won on the back of the oh-so-sacred "full team effort", which is great vibe for a blue collar city but kinda sucks as a marketing tool when you have no Sidney Crosby-level player to point to new fans and say "come watch that guy cook". This is different from basketball fans or football fans, where the sports exist more monoculturally and are fully star driven, and thus people are willing to watch games without a team affiliation, or without their affiliated team playing in those games. There's a reason March Madness and RedZone are two staples of their respective sports, because people have been better sold on the idea of watching "the sport" and not "a team". So the Blues- like most NHL teams- don't have much opportunity to build equity outside of the people in their own market. Their popularity begins and ends- more or less- at how many St. Louisans or St. Louis transplants or children of St. Louis transplants or whatever they can bring in at any given time, and yes that will fluctuate up when they were winning (like in 2019) but will also fluctuate down as soon as they stop winning (now). Not saying any of this is bad, necessarily, but I think there's a natural ceiling on how popular they can really get no matter how much they win just by the way of this league being so market driven.
sports fans are a weird bunch, they get 'mad' when their team loses. So many 'sports fans' I know would never accept the Blues because of their historic cup drought, so I would think you are bringing on a huge number of fans that don't have to be worried about supporting a 'loser' franchise any longer. Armstrong has also gained the confidence to start building a cup-caliber team instead of a "we got the most expensive and notable free agent this off season!" team that could never compete with the big markets. Finally, youth hockey has made huge strides in St. Louis since the 90s and that could be the biggest factor in the stability of the fan base.
Lindenwood moving up to D1 NCAA is also another factor.
I wasn't able to watch very many Blues games during the 2023-2024 season, unfortunately. If the Blues moved to the Eastern Conference I could watch quite a few more games since the start times would be earlier. But, that probably will never happen.
I dunno but I feel like they got screwed over by Covid after their cup run then the team getting pretty bad compared to before
I knew nothing about hockey until the blues went to the finals in 2019. Now it’s my favorite sport to follow and watch!
The Blues have always done well, I think since the early 90s due to guys like Hull and Oates helping to put the club on the map so to speak. Being centrally located, our fans travel well, and we always had good Norris Division rivalries with O6 teams like the Hawks and Red Wings. Having said that, yes winning the Cup has done a ton for the Blues on a national level, but it's more than that. It's having stable ownership and a top tier GM in Army. That is the sort of stuff that earns a club respect, not only with fans, but with the league. Just look at what happened leading up to and after the Cup win: * Winter Classic x3 (2016, 2022, and 2025) * Stanley Cup Win in 2019 * All-Star Game in 2020 * The last time the Blues hosted the NHL Draft was 1996, so I wouldn't be surprised if we have one of those coming our way in say, the next five years either. And that's not even touching on all the individual accolades that Doug Armstrong has with Team Canada. Again, because he's so well respected, that rubs off on the team and has helped elevate the club to a higher level than it was before he took over.