That's a Winner

St. Louis is one of the best sports cities in the nation—and about to get even better.

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Imagine an Olympiad without the iconic medals or the game of football without the forward pass. Both are symbolic of St. Louis’ impact on the modern sports landscape.

The 1904 Olympic Games, held in St. Louis, marked the first time that bronze, silver, and gold medals were awarded to top finishers, a milestone moment for the international event. Two years later, Saint Louis University football coach Eddie Cochems eschewed conventional football wisdom, giving birth to the modern game as we know it when he instructed his quarterback to throw the ball to a teammate rather than simply hand it off.

When St. Louis Sports Commission president and CEO Frank Viverito considers all the factors that make St. Louis such a robust region for sports, he first looks to the past. Moments like these are etched not only into St. Louis sports lore but into the national register, too. It’s that rich history that has helped bring us to the buzzing sports scene the area enjoys today.

“There has been a pride and a significance to sports for so long here, and that creates great fans,” Viverito says. “It grows into what I would consider to be the best sports town. You don’t count that necessarily by wins and losses and how many teams we have right now. You try to count that by the passion and the knowledge and the impact that sports have on this community.”

That passion is on display wherever you look, whether it’s the 2018–2019 Stanley Cup Champion Blues in hockey, the 11-time World Series Champion Cardinals in baseball, the newborn St. Louis CITY SC franchise that will begin play in Major League Soccer in 2023, the youth sports levels, or any of the ranks in between.

Consider the reach these teams have. The Cardinals are very much a regional team, with a fan base that covers large swaths of the Midwest. The franchise ranked second in MLB attendance in 2019, welcoming 3.48 million fans through the turnstiles of Busch Stadium. St. Louis is very much a baseball town April through October, and yet even when the Cards are out of season, the sprawling restaurant and entertainment district of Ballpark Village draws crowds.

Those crowds flock to Blues games, too. The team captured the hearts of St. Louisians during their 2019 Stanley Cup run, when they won the NHL’s coveted trophy for the first time in franchise history, then celebrated with legions of fans during a raucous, long-awaited parade down Market Street in downtown St. Louis. Since the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, the popularity of both the Blues and the game of hockey itself has only grown.

Blues president and CEO Chris Zimmerman says television ratings were up by nearly 30 percent during the 2019–2020 season, and season ticket commitments remain strong, even amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beyond their play on the ice, the Blues have also built interest in the sport by investing in the community. Zimmerman estimates the team reaches 100,000 children annually through an in-school ball hockey program, and the opening of the brand-new Centene Community Ice Center, in Maryland Heights, has allowed the Blues to provide additional skating opportunities.

Zimmerman says that during the Blues’ inaugural season, in 1967, there was just one ice rink in St. Louis. Now, with the 2019 ribbon-cutting for the Centene Center, which features four NHL-size rinks and functions as the Blues practice facility, there are roughly 25 sheets of ice available to skaters throughout the region.

“We’ve self-proclaimed ourselves the Heartland of Hockey,” Zimmerman says. “If you look at the events that have happened here, the NHL Winter Classic in 2017, then us winning the Cup, the NHL All-Star Game in January [2020]—we were just awarded the 2025 NCAA Frozen Four—we are establishing ourselves as one of the great hockey towns in North America.”

Although you may think of the Enterprise Center as the Blues’ dedicated home, it also serves as a destination for marquee events across the sports landscape. St. Louis has become a hub for gymnastics, hosting two NCAA Championships and three USA Gymnastics events in recent years. In June 2021, the city is scheduled to host the U.S. Olympic Team Trials at the Enterprise Center and the USA Gymnastics Championships at the America’s Convention Center Complex at the Dome.

Basketball also has a place in St. Louis sports culture. The Saint Louis University men’s basketball team is a perennial top-25 program nationally and regularly packs the 10,600-seat Chaifetz Arena. Women’s basketball has a dedicated following, too, and the St. Louis Surge, of the Global Women’s Basketball Association, has won two national titles in its first decade on the court. Notably, the Missouri Valley Conference has staged its men’s basketball tournament in St. Louis for 30 consecutive seasons, drawing thousands of fans from across the Midwest each March.

“We’ve hosted men’s Final Fours, women’s Final Fours, and regionals, and we have another first- and second-round (NCAA Tournament) event coming up in 2026,” Viverito says. “We find our sweet spot in terms of events. The PGA Championship was wildly successful here in 2018, and we’re working on bringing more high-profile golf to the community. It’s a great mix of sports.”

That even includes auto racing. A short hop across the Mississippi River, World Wide Technology Raceway, in Madison, draws a wide variety of major events such as NASCAR, IndyCar, NHRA drag racing, Formula DRIFT, and amateur road racing.

The track has enjoyed a rebirth since owner Curtis Francois took over a decade ago, receiving much-needed overhauls, including a repaved oval, an extended road course, and a new pavilion and grandstand, among other amenities. Francois and his team have also looked beyond the raceway, working to make racing a more accessible sport for youngsters in the St. Louis community. In October, World Wide Technology Raceway received the NASCAR Drive for Diversity award for its youth outreach program.

“For the last nine years, we’ve worked with local schools to make meaningful introductions to motorsports and identify career paths that would provide jobs in motorsports,” Francois says. “We also work closely with the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Center to bring racing to kids through the STEM educational program. Our karting complex and the related programs there are designed to provide hands-on experience and the ability to compete at the grassroots level with scholarship programs that further reduce barriers for kids.”

Soon, Major League Soccer will have a place in the local sports conversation with the expansion St. Louis CITY SC taking the pitch in 2023. The franchise will play in a new 22,500-seat multi-use stadium that’s under construction in the Downtown West neighborhood. It will be one more point of pride on a St. Louis sporting scene that’s always eager to embrace the local teams.

Says Viverito: “This is a city and a region that loves sports.” 

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