Ashley Loose is a Real-Time Editor at ABC15 Arizona.
Record heat didn’t stop baseball fans from showing up for Arizona’s Cactus League spring training season, as this year marked the fifth-straight year of climbing attendance. Officials say 1,753,849 people attended 237 spring training games in 2026, up 3.
4% from the previous year.Opening Day of spring training was the largest since 2018, when nearly 40,000 people attended four games in the Valley.The date with the largest single-day attendance this year was Friday, March 20, when Phoenix was deep into a record heat wave. Despite temperatures reaching 105º in Phoenix that day, more than 78,000 fans attended nine games, eight of which were rescheduled for later in the day due to the heat.The Chicago Cubs saw the highest attendance, averaging 12,644 people per game at Sloan Park. The ballpark also hosted the largest crowd of the season for the Cubs-Los Angeles Dodgers game on Sunday, March 15.The Chicago White Sox saw the biggest jump in attendance with a 12.9% increase from last year. While Mother Nature turned up the heat this year, there were no rain-outs for the first time since 2022, officials say. The 2020, 2021, and 2022 seasons all saw much lower attendance due to COVID and Major League Baseball lockout impacts. Fifteen MLB teams come to the Valley for spring training: Arizona Diamondbacks, Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, Cincinnati Reds, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers, the Athletics, San Diego Padres, San Francisco Giants, Seattle Mariners, and Texas Rangers.Spring Training was expected to inject nearly $953 million in tourist dollars into the Valley's economy this year. Because Cactus League stadiums are spread across the Valley, nearly every community sees the benefits. The final figures for this year's spring training economic impact have not yet been released.
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