Top-flight professional soccer is finally back in the sport’s American hotbed of St. Louis and it is accompanied by a brand new stadium for the team that will call the city its home.
St. Louis City SC debuted as a Major League Soccer expansion team in 2023 with a road match at Austin FC, and the dramatic come-from-behind victory in that inaugural game only raised the expectations for the club’s second official match.
Scheduled for Saturday, March 4, 2023, that second bow for St. Louis City SC will also represent the first home game in club history. A national and global audience is set to get a taste of the club’s new field, and the reception that can be expected for visiting players and fans in the months and years ahead.
The Sporting News outlines everything you need to know about what makes CityPark in St. Louis so distinct. It’s the latest addition to a decades-long soccer stadium boom in the USA which has seen nine new homes for the sport in a mere five-year span (2018-2023).
How much did CityPark cost to build?
CityPark is a $458 million stadium in the Downtown West area of St. Louis across from historic Union Station.
The stadium is the centerpiece of a 31-acre stadium district that also features the club’s training facility, including three full-sized fields used by the first team and academy.
What is CityPark capacity?
St. Louis City SC’s stadium can seat 22,500 fans, though the club would have filled double the capacity with 50,000 season ticket deposits received in the first 24 hours they were made available.
The current 22,500 configuration includes the 3,000 supporters located in a safe-standing section in the north end, equipped with everything supporters’ groups could use. The supporters will even have their own pub in that section of the building, called the Hellcat.
One of the highlights of the stadium seating is that no fan will be more than 120 feet away from the field with the closest fans positioned just 15 feet from the touchline.
