Fans started arriving at Erlanger Park on April 14, and they never stopped.
The Chattanooga Lookouts finished the inaugural season at their new $115 million facility Sunday afternoon, drawing 5,620 supporters to conclude their 69-game home schedule with a franchise-record total attendance of 336,312. The Lookouts drew a record 292,920 fans to Engel Stadium in 1994 and set their AT&T Field standard with 290,165 fans during the inaugural season in 2000.
Chattanooga’s season attendance this year is the highest of any team in the Double-A Southern League since 2019, when the Birmingham Barons drew 379,707 fans to Regions Park in their seventh straight season of leading the league.
“It’s a huge shot in the arm for us, and it’s a nice thing to be able to say. Chattanooga has shown up,” Lookouts president Rich Mozingo said. “What’s been super nice to me is the amount of repeat business we’ve done, and that’s the amount of people who have come out, had a blast and wanted to come back again and again.
“We need to continue to build on that.”
It was widely expected the Lookouts would have robust crowds during Erlanger Park’s early days and weeks, but what wasn’t a given was the support down the stretch. The team itself faltered in July, August and September and finished with the league’s worst record this year at 59-79, but Chattanooga’s last three home games drew a whopping 18,327 over the weekend.
One of the bigger differences Mozingo discovered with Erlanger Park was that it didn’t have to be so reliant on entertainment acts such as the inflatable Zooperstars, who typically made multiple trips to AT&T Field but made only one appearance this season on Aug. 29.
“When we were doing promotions over at AT&T Field, you would worry about having an entertainer on this or that day because you knew more people would show up,” Mozingo said. “People have shown up in droves this year for giveaways, and the one thing that really rattled me was doing a blanket giveaway (June 24) so you could sit on the berm with it. In nine minutes, we gave every single one of them away on a Wednesday night.
“That still just blows me away. We gave away a Looie the Lookout bobblehead on our final Wednesday night, and I could have never fathomed five years ago doing a giveaway on a Wednesday night for any reason in the world.”
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Knoxville finished second this season with a total attendance of 294,866, and Mozingo wants to keep the Smokies and other Southern League teams playing catch-up again in 2027.
“We’re way into laying out the schedule for next year,” he said. “Whatever you experienced this year, there will be more next year, and it will be bigger and better.”
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com.