The Dodgers announced Friday that they will return to full-capacity crowds at Dodger Stadium beginning June 15.
The Dodgers have 11 home games before June 15 and will continue with socially distanced seating while also offering fully-vaccinated seating sections. The first full capacity event since Game 5 of the National League Division Series on October 9, 2019, will be a Tuesday night game against the Philadelphia Phillies.
The move is in response to the California reopening plan announced by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office Friday.
“We’re very excited about finally being able to open fully,” Dodgers CEO and team president Stan Kasten said. “I know our fans have been looking forward to this for over a year.
“It means a lot. We’ve all been waiting for this. It’s another sign of returning to normalcy. It’s been a very long year and two, three months and this is just another hopeful sign for all of us, baseball fans and non-baseball fans alike.”
Tickets for games starting June 15 through the remainder of the 2021 regular season will go on sale at 4 p.m. May 27 through www.dodgers.com/tickets.
Kasten has acknowledged the pandemic caused the Dodgers to lose more than $100 million during the 2020 season when no fans were allowed to attend games at Dodger Stadium. The team laid off dozens of employees in the fall.
The team invested $100 million in a major renovation that created a new center-field plaza and added concessions options and two sports bars under the pavilions. That has been opened to fans this season but only approximately 15,000 to 16,000 fans have been able to attend games on a limited-capacity basis.
“This means we can finally get close to our full revenue potential and we’ve sorely missed that over the past year,” Kasten acknowledged.
The Dodgers will play to a full-capacity Minute Maid Park when they visit Houston for a two-game series against the Astros next week.
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