Chicago Cubs: A detailed history of Wrigley Field attendance

If there is one thing the Chicago Cubs are known for, it’s packed houses at Wrigley Field. Whether it be because of the national fanbase, and/or the novelty of going to one of the few remaining classic ballparks in America, the Friendly Confines is often full. This has been done on a consistent basis for the past several decades going back to the 1980s.

Millenial Cubs fans, like myself, have really only known Wrigley Field as the place where a majority of the seats are regularly packed with fans. Even some of the lowest attended games over the past 20 years still seemed like full houses compared to what teams like the Oakland A’s, Tampa Bay Rays or Miami Marlins draw. The older generations of fans, however, will probably remember something altogether different.

There were plenty of years in the 50s and 60s when the Cubs did not even reach 800K spectators at the ballpark in a given season. Some games back then they did not even bother opening the upper deck in the grandstand there were so few people there. On May 12, 1970, the day Ernie Banks hit his 500th home run at Wrigley Field, only 5,264 fans showed up to bear witness. That’s hard to imagine that happening today, without COVID restrictions of course. And that was in a season where they actually did draw over a million fans.

The Cubs have played at Wrigley since 1916, and the ballpark has had a seating capacity of over 30,000 dating back to 1927 when the upper deck of the grandstand was constructed. Here is a more detailed look at the history of Cubs attendance at Wrigley Field.

NOTE: These numbers are based on Baseball-Reference and Baseball-Almanac, based on tickets sold.

Chicago Cubs: The highs and lows of Cubs attendance from the late-1920s through the late-1960s were impacted by both the team and the economy

Like the world around it, Wrigley Field saw itself grow bigger and better during the Roaring Twenties. The ballpark only seated around 15,000 when the Cubs moved to the corner of Clark and Addison from the West Side Grounds in 1916. The grandstand relocation and expansion of 1922-1923 followed by the double-decking of the grandstand in 1927-1928 allowed for the park to seat nearly 40,000 people. In 1927 the Cubs drew over a million people (1,159,168) for the first time in their history.

From 1927-1931 they drew over a million fans each year, with a then-record of 1,485,166 in 1929 when the Cubs won the pennant. Then after 1931, the numbers dipped again. Despite a decade of dominance, including three pennants, the Cubs did not draw at least a million fans once from 1932-1944. Over those 13 seasons, they averaged roughly 697,000 per season. Considering these years covered both the height of The Great Depression and World War II, it is not much of a surprise to see the dip.

Come 1945, when the war ended and the Cubs won another pennant, Wrigley saw the number jump over a million again. From 1945-1952, the Cubs averaged a yearly attendance of 1,151,188, with all but one of those years (1951) hitting the million mark.

It was from 1953 through 1967 when Wrigley would see its final stretch of regularly drawing under a million fans. Over that stretch, they never reached the million mark and averaged 779,657 per season. The greatness of Ernie Banks and later Fergie Jenkins, Billy Williams and Ron Santo did not stop those Cubs teams from finishing near or at the very bottom for a majority of those years. There was even a game in 1966 where they reportedly drew only 530 fans at the park. These attendance numbers are less likely attributed to economic hardship, and more to the simple fact the team was consistently bad.