I moved to this area in 2004. Within 5 years, it would have been more convenient to watch games on my phone or streaming through my video game console.
It took almost 20 years for them to catch up with consumer demand.
Blame it all on $30 a month "packages" that force you to take a whole bunch of obsolete cable channels you dont want for 3 hours of television roughly 5 months of the year, and then "blackout" restrictions for anyone in the Midwest who can figure out a cheaper avenue.
Bally never had anything to do with this. Nor does FanDuel. Theyāre just licensing their naming rights to the company that owns the regional sport networks. Which is Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair is responsible for the entire downfall of the RSNās. Which isnāt saying much, because the whole cable package bundle was obsolete when they purchased the RSNās from Disney.
MLB takes over the broadcast, just like they already did with San Diego, Arizona, Colorado, and others. This is a massive step in the right direction towards a future where there are no more blackout restrictions.
Yeah, probably will be more expensive than an MLB.tv subscription that out of market fans like me enjoy. But it will also probably be cheaper than cable, if you were a cable subscriber who only really subscribed for sports. If they could keep it to $1/game, that would be a heck of a deal. Probably will be a bit more than that though
Do any of the blackouts change? Like right now in Indy, with MLBtv I'm blacked out when the Cards are in Cincy. Since both teams are on MLB now I'm hoping that goes away.
It's been Fox Sports Midwest / Bally Sports Midwest / FDSNMW since the 90s. They only added a DTC option last year, but it's been available on cable for decades.
Yes, Iām talking about āweā as in my householdā¦
Edit: Also to clarify when I said ābefore FanDuelā I mean ever since FSMW dropped it, my household hasnāt been able to get it easily until FanDuel picked it up.
I have no idea what the rules will be next season, but eventually, MLB will want to reach every fan. The blackout rules were put in place by the RSNs to force people to buy cable. Itās a different situation than the NFL, which blacked out games in local markets if they didnāt sell out. MLB will only benefit by getting rid of blackouts, provided they are the ones distributing their product.
It will never happen. Because teams like the dodgers/Yankees who have their own network would never allow mlb to have their rights. They get paid way too muchĀ
Yeah, there will be a few holdouts. The Dodgers, the New York teams, the Blue Jays, Cubs, maybe Philly. But I think the league can get 20+ teams on board in short order, and it would be a huge boon to fans of those teams.
Either some other stupid company thinks they can turn a profit and buys the rights, or the rights stay with MLB and they broadcast all the games without an external partner. The latter is more likely.
So like what is that status of blackouts? Because all I want is to be able to pay the price of MLBTV and watch all of the games. I would even be ok with losing the nationally televised broadcasts, but being in PA, I don't want to lose all of the Pirates and Phillies games.
If all the teams go to MLBTV, then there won't be a need for exclusive contracts and thus no need for blackouts. Really as long as the two teams are both using MLB, then there wouldn't need to be a blackout between them.
Ok. I live in Oklahoma. What are my options now for watching the the cards? Preferably without blackouts and without approaching the cost of just getting tickets and traveling to every single game.
But for real (not that thatās not for real - thatās how I watched the blackout games last year) MLB.TV is $150 for the season. Thatās less than a single game for me coming from Ohio.
That's what the end game was gonna be anyway. Manfred wants all the teams under the mlb broadcast umbrella to make it easier for the fans which is relatively shocking coming from him. I suppose the revenue is part of that as well though.
Yeah, not wanting to stir up a big controversy makes sense for someone who wants to increase league viewership and revenue. It's a shitty thing to do, but its not counterintuitive to improving viewership and such.
Purposely making it harder to watch games makes no sense for the league.
Bad part would be the loss in revenue for the team.Ā Fat guaranteed RSN checks help keep team payroll up. It's unlikely direct to consumer will match up in terms of total money.
Thatās the downside compared to the past when the team was actually getting a guaranteed paycheck from the RSN, but not when you compare it to the current reality of the RSN just not paying them at all, which followed two years of the RSN paying them less than what was initially agreed upon. If Iām the Cardinals, I take my chances with MLB.
But werenāt they already missing those payments? If this leads to a better direct to consumer option, they increase eyes on the product which is definitely better for the long term health.
It was a good contract for the Cardinals. They were supposed to have made $75 million in TV revenue last year. It was only bad because they didn't paid it all.
There is no way they are going to get anything close to $75 million a year ever again.
Indeed, that's part of the problem. Mid market RSNs can't make money giving $75 million contracts without cable money.
Direct to consumer via Smart TVs and apps can make significantlyĀ more. Subscription costs of $10 or $15 a month would give you $90 to $135 dollars per subscriber per year. Plus the ad revenue for selling ads during games. Ads through an app/smart tv should be significantly more valuable than general broadcast ads since they can be more accurately targeted to their desired demographic.Ā
75,000 Padres fans paid $120 last season. That's single digit millions of dollars. The original FSMW contract was like $60m per year. You're talking out of your ass if you think the cable money is being recreated with a DTC model based on subscription fees and ads. It's not even going to get close.
It's too economically complex a topic to sum up very briefly, so I'd just suggest Googling it or asking an AI tool. But tkey thing to understand is that the networks werenāt funding those contracts primarily from direct viewership of the games -- they were funding them through the cable bundle.
Cable and satellite companies paid RSNs a fixed fee per subscriber, regardless of whether the customer ever watched the games. Because the networks were carried broadly on basic cable tiers, that per-subscriber carriage fee multiplied by millions of cable subscribers led to mongo bucks for the RSNs, which then paid for huge rights fees contracts.
In effect, everyone buying a cable bundle was subsidizing those rights fees, since the RSNs were included whether people watched the games or not.
Advertising was also part of the picture, but the revenue from ads was tiny compared to the carriage fees and not enough to sustain the model.
Cord-cutting means far fewer cable/satellite subscribers, which is why the model is now collapsing.
Cards average. Fan Duel reported 131,000 unique streamers last year for 208 million minutes watched. (I suspect this is probably the floor on subscribers because more people would pay for a streaming service than a cable package) So that's $15.7 million.
On average there are about 48 minutes of commercials in an MLB game. 162 games a year. That's 96 30-second ad spots during a game for $2,200 on average. So $34.2 million.(This number is based on optimistic linear tv rates. Connected tv rates start at the top of linear tv ad rates and can easily be double.)
Pre and post game show each have about 22 mins of ads for an additional 88 30-second spots but about half the rate of the broadcast. So $12.8 millionish.
That gets you to about $63 million in revenue.Ā
If you adjust for connected tv rates then your looking at $55+ million in in-game ad revenue from the switch to streaming alone and this is assuming the low 2025 viewership numbers. Which would bump revenue to $83.5 million.
All of this analysis ignores the fact that the Cardinals owned a portion of FSMW so they also received profits from that that didn't count towards game generated revenue.
All these numbers are easy to find with a quick Google.
More than likely means I still wonāt get a tv package. And Iām assuming the price to stream cardinals games from mlb isnāt something I want to do.
So Iām guessing I wonāt get to see much of the rebuild for the next few years
It was $100 down here in AZ for just the Dbacks season last year that MLB produced (only Dbacks games, didnāt include national televised/Appletv/etc).
Damn Disney going after Star Wars and messing everything up, including Star Wars. I think our broadcast team has a dual contract with the birds on top of fan duel so we keep them? Iām not sure of the specifics.
So if you use mlb tv, with mlb having the Cards broadcasts moving forward, I assume that means even in local markets Cards games would no longer be blacked out on mlb tv? Is that accurate?
Ok thanks. I already get MLV TV each year usually as a gift for my kid who is a baseball junkie while I am more of a Cards only watcher for the most part. An extra $50 a year for me and him to watch Cards games not the end of the world. Thanks again for the info.
Were the D-Backs game on any traditional cable channel?
My dad likes watching the Cardinals game but thereās about a 2% chance he figures out how to use an app. Itās a lot easier if he could just go to a channel like he always has,
Copy and paste job from a 3/27/2025 MLB article since I have YoutubeTV and they for sure donāt have it
āD-backs fans can easily locate where to watch games depending on the video distributor they utilize in the home television territory, including DIRECTV satellite and streaming, Comcast, Cox, Fubo, Spectrumā
So they did have more traditional cable tv options (Cox) and streaming services (Fubo, Directv)
Will be interesting to see what happens now that ESPN has inserted themselves in to this.
I donāt have athletic so I canāt read the article. Isnāt this a huge loss of income for the Cardinals? Is the contract from MLB the same? I guess they werenāt getting paid anyway by FDSN but Iād like to have better knowledge on the financial side of things
Yes through a special MLB.tv Cardinals-only package, with no blackout restrictions. Assuming the team follows the model of every other team with MLB-controlled broadcasts from the last few years.
So im in the stl area. What does this mean? Im not renewing my fubo subscription when the season starts where will be need to subscribe to to watch all the games?
ooof...I paid the 198$ for annual access to the Blues and Cardinals, and just re-upped a few months ago...so, I reckon I just ate that money for the Cardinals games? š¤¦āāļø
I miss just throwing on Fox Sports Midwest
I miss KPLR dude
Cardinals baseball and Voltron. How could you go wrong?
Simpler times. And we were good then.
WE ARE
FOX SPORTS
WE ARE
ST. LOUIS
this was a whole comfort zone on a Sunday afternoon š„
....kinda
I moved to this area in 2004. Within 5 years, it would have been more convenient to watch games on my phone or streaming through my video game console.
It took almost 20 years for them to catch up with consumer demand.
Blame it all on $30 a month "packages" that force you to take a whole bunch of obsolete cable channels you dont want for 3 hours of television roughly 5 months of the year, and then "blackout" restrictions for anyone in the Midwest who can figure out a cheaper avenue.
I would say for most people that was fine. Theyād get the blues the other months of the year. And youād catch more college hoops and football.
It wasnāt perfect. But I think for a lot of people it was better than the rigamarole of never ending streaming services.
Before the SEC network, a good amount of Mizzou games were also on FSMW.
good number
Pirating the games has been the easiest, most convenient method for me since OTA.
I blame it more on greed and complete lack of foresight from commissioners office and the owners. Ā
Everyone could see the trends in the mid 2010s and the rapid amount of cord cutting that was happening. Ā
They need to make it easier for fans to stream the games and get rid of the blackouts.
They will if mlb takes over the rights
So now what
Less remarkable Kevin Hart gambling ads, as the Oracle foretold. Next sponsorship being an Open AI chat bot. Bally Sports be damned!
Bally never had anything to do with this. Nor does FanDuel. Theyāre just licensing their naming rights to the company that owns the regional sport networks. Which is Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair is responsible for the entire downfall of the RSNās. Which isnāt saying much, because the whole cable package bundle was obsolete when they purchased the RSNās from Disney.
Iām picturing Larry Ellison in a see through silk dress huffing ethanol fumes in a cave now. Ā
Thank you for that.
MLB takes over the broadcast, just like they already did with San Diego, Arizona, Colorado, and others. This is a massive step in the right direction towards a future where there are no more blackout restrictions.
As excited as I am about this, I suspect they'll find a way to squeeze us for a few bucks more in the end
Yeah, probably will be more expensive than an MLB.tv subscription that out of market fans like me enjoy. But it will also probably be cheaper than cable, if you were a cable subscriber who only really subscribed for sports. If they could keep it to $1/game, that would be a heck of a deal. Probably will be a bit more than that though
Last year I paid $99 for the whole season from Fan Duel. It was an incredible deal. I think I waited until opening day to subscribe.
Yea same here but the streaming was so awful that I gave up trying to watch games about 3 weeks into the season.
Thatās fantastic. No wonder they went bankrupt
That's also what MLB produced team fans paid last year.
Padres in-market price was $120.
No it wasn't.
My guess is they'll try to copy the NFL Sunday Ticket
So will I be to watch it in IL or will it be blacked out?
If you're currently in the Cardinals territory, there will be a local option you can buy to watch.
If you're currently outside the Cardinals territory, nothing changes.
Do any of the blackouts change? Like right now in Indy, with MLBtv I'm blacked out when the Cards are in Cincy. Since both teams are on MLB now I'm hoping that goes away.
The local blackouts don't change at all to my understanding.
I just hope itās its own thing and not only on some random ass provider. Before FanDuel we could only get it if we got something like Fubo.
It's been Fox Sports Midwest / Bally Sports Midwest / FDSNMW since the 90s. They only added a DTC option last year, but it's been available on cable for decades.
We no longer have cable, thatās the issue.
You no longer have cable.
But regardless the Cardinals have committed to a DTC option next year wherever they end up.
Yes, Iām talking about āweā as in my householdā¦
Edit: Also to clarify when I said ābefore FanDuelā I mean ever since FSMW dropped it, my household hasnāt been able to get it easily until FanDuel picked it up.
I have no idea what the rules will be next season, but eventually, MLB will want to reach every fan. The blackout rules were put in place by the RSNs to force people to buy cable. Itās a different situation than the NFL, which blacked out games in local markets if they didnāt sell out. MLB will only benefit by getting rid of blackouts, provided they are the ones distributing their product.
You won't be blacked out if you pay the extra 100ish dollars to get Cards games
It will never happen. Because teams like the dodgers/Yankees who have their own network would never allow mlb to have their rights. They get paid way too muchĀ
Yeah, there will be a few holdouts. The Dodgers, the New York teams, the Blue Jays, Cubs, maybe Philly. But I think the league can get 20+ teams on board in short order, and it would be a huge boon to fans of those teams.
Either some other stupid company thinks they can turn a profit and buys the rights, or the rights stay with MLB and they broadcast all the games without an external partner. The latter is more likely.
[deleted]
Yes please
Me too, Iām not very tech savvy
Tight so now the blues and cards are on separate services. Itās almost like they donāt want us to watch.
I mean, do you really want to watch the blues right now
Like our cardinals are doing so much more to make them entertaining to watch š
Not any less than I want to watch these cardinals teams lately
I meanā¦having the option is nice lol.
Or the Cards lol
At least the Blues have made it really easy to not renew my Fanduel streaming subscription.
So like what is that status of blackouts? Because all I want is to be able to pay the price of MLBTV and watch all of the games. I would even be ok with losing the nationally televised broadcasts, but being in PA, I don't want to lose all of the Pirates and Phillies games.
Itās fine so long as MLB brings back the PooP games
MLB.tv isn't changing no matter what happens here.
If all the teams go to MLBTV, then there won't be a need for exclusive contracts and thus no need for blackouts. Really as long as the two teams are both using MLB, then there wouldn't need to be a blackout between them.
Ok. I live in Oklahoma. What are my options now for watching the the cards? Preferably without blackouts and without approaching the cost of just getting tickets and traveling to every single game.
Ahoy matey.
But for real (not that thatās not for real - thatās how I watched the blackout games last year) MLB.TV is $150 for the season. Thatās less than a single game for me coming from Ohio.
If you're in the Cardinals tv territory, you'll have a DTC streaming option. The Cardinals said they're committed to one wherever they end up TV wise.
If you're out of market, nothing changes.
So is this good or bad?
Obviously it seems bad, but if itās a step towards MLB just distributing it themselves then it could be good in the long run
That's what the end game was gonna be anyway. Manfred wants all the teams under the mlb broadcast umbrella to make it easier for the fans which is relatively shocking coming from him. I suppose the revenue is part of that as well though.
How is it shocking that the commissioner of baseball wants more people to watch baseball? Lol
You must not have met Rob Manfred
This is the same guy who pretty much said the Astros cheating scandal wasn't that big of a deal because they're playing for a "piece of metal".
Yeah, not wanting to stir up a big controversy makes sense for someone who wants to increase league viewership and revenue. It's a shitty thing to do, but its not counterintuitive to improving viewership and such.
Purposely making it harder to watch games makes no sense for the league.
Yeah thats what I meant. If this is just them working towards that goal, then awesome
I donāt see how this could be a bad thing.
Bad part would be the loss in revenue for the team.Ā Fat guaranteed RSN checks help keep team payroll up. It's unlikely direct to consumer will match up in terms of total money.
Thatās the downside compared to the past when the team was actually getting a guaranteed paycheck from the RSN, but not when you compare it to the current reality of the RSN just not paying them at all, which followed two years of the RSN paying them less than what was initially agreed upon. If Iām the Cardinals, I take my chances with MLB.
But werenāt they already missing those payments? If this leads to a better direct to consumer option, they increase eyes on the product which is definitely better for the long term health.
Fair. I was thinking of it from the perspective of the RSN actually paying vs direct to consumer.
It's ultimately good. It ends a bad contract for the Cardinals
It was a good contract for the Cardinals. They were supposed to have made $75 million in TV revenue last year. It was only bad because they didn't paid it all.
There is no way they are going to get anything close to $75 million a year ever again.
Indeed, that's part of the problem. Mid market RSNs can't make money giving $75 million contracts without cable money.
Direct to consumer via Smart TVs and apps can make significantlyĀ more. Subscription costs of $10 or $15 a month would give you $90 to $135 dollars per subscriber per year. Plus the ad revenue for selling ads during games. Ads through an app/smart tv should be significantly more valuable than general broadcast ads since they can be more accurately targeted to their desired demographic.Ā
75,000 Padres fans paid $120 last season. That's single digit millions of dollars. The original FSMW contract was like $60m per year. You're talking out of your ass if you think the cable money is being recreated with a DTC model based on subscription fees and ads. It's not even going to get close.
How do you think FSMW was able to afford that $60 million a year?Ā
It's too economically complex a topic to sum up very briefly, so I'd just suggest Googling it or asking an AI tool. But tkey thing to understand is that the networks werenāt funding those contracts primarily from direct viewership of the games -- they were funding them through the cable bundle.
Cable and satellite companies paid RSNs a fixed fee per subscriber, regardless of whether the customer ever watched the games. Because the networks were carried broadly on basic cable tiers, that per-subscriber carriage fee multiplied by millions of cable subscribers led to mongo bucks for the RSNs, which then paid for huge rights fees contracts.
In effect, everyone buying a cable bundle was subsidizing those rights fees, since the RSNs were included whether people watched the games or not.
Advertising was also part of the picture, but the revenue from ads was tiny compared to the carriage fees and not enough to sustain the model.
Cord-cutting means far fewer cable/satellite subscribers, which is why the model is now collapsing.
It's not really that hard.Ā
Cards average. Fan Duel reported 131,000 unique streamers last year for 208 million minutes watched. (I suspect this is probably the floor on subscribers because more people would pay for a streaming service than a cable package) So that's $15.7 million.
On average there are about 48 minutes of commercials in an MLB game. 162 games a year. That's 96 30-second ad spots during a game for $2,200 on average. So $34.2 million.(This number is based on optimistic linear tv rates. Connected tv rates start at the top of linear tv ad rates and can easily be double.)
Pre and post game show each have about 22 mins of ads for an additional 88 30-second spots but about half the rate of the broadcast. So $12.8 millionish.
That gets you to about $63 million in revenue.Ā
If you adjust for connected tv rates then your looking at $55+ million in in-game ad revenue from the switch to streaming alone and this is assuming the low 2025 viewership numbers. Which would bump revenue to $83.5 million.
All of this analysis ignores the fact that the Cardinals owned a portion of FSMW so they also received profits from that that didn't count towards game generated revenue.
All these numbers are easy to find with a quick Google.
Only if the MLB gets rid of their insane blackout rules.
Last time I checked, the whole state of Iowa is blacked out for STL, KC, CHI, MSP & MIL.
That's a result of the RSN deals so the more they go away, the sooner no blackouts come
Does this mean blackouts for everyone
If the Cardinals go with the MLB to produce broadcasts (which I think they will) that means no blackouts and extended reach, hopefully.
Only issue is that ESPN now has broadcasting rights to the MLB Local Media teams, so it's possible that ESPN+ might become mandatory
I have the Fubo sports package. Every sports channel, local channels and a couple news, as well as ESPN Unilimited (ESPN+). Itās only $50
My understanding is that it's going to be a separate paywall for the duration of the deal.
162 games my friend... questions is do we have to but the content
I havenāt blacked out since college but Iām down.
More than likely means I still wonāt get a tv package. And Iām assuming the price to stream cardinals games from mlb isnāt something I want to do.
So Iām guessing I wonāt get to see much of the rebuild for the next few years
Other MLB-controlled broadcast packages have been $20 per month or $100 for the season. Doesnāt include Apple/ESPN broadcasts, of course.
Apple at least lets you choose your teamās radio broadcast crew. The mouse makes you listen to their blowhards.
Same and honestly Iām ok with it.
It was $100 down here in AZ for just the Dbacks season last year that MLB produced (only Dbacks games, didnāt include national televised/Appletv/etc).
FDSN at least had a direct to consumer app last season
Anything in future has to or it will be a down grade.
Out of state, so Iāve been streaming the Redbirds for 20 years over MLB.com. Works great costs $200/yr.
Yeah, but all teams get an equal cut out of that $200. So basically the Cardinals made $7 off of you.
Damn Disney going after Star Wars and messing everything up, including Star Wars. I think our broadcast team has a dual contract with the birds on top of fan duel so we keep them? Iām not sure of the specifics.
PSA: NO FINAL DECISIONS HAVE BEEN MADE YET ON WHERE THE GAMES WILL BE AVAILABLE. WAIT FOR FURTHER NEWS
They could sign back with FDSN, but it'd be a greatly reduced fee that I doubt they'll accept.
Best thing for fans is for them to leave that shit pile behind.
Love to see it. Former FanDuel/Bally/FSMW employee here. Itās been a clown show for years. Good riddance
So if you use mlb tv, with mlb having the Cards broadcasts moving forward, I assume that means even in local markets Cards games would no longer be blacked out on mlb tv? Is that accurate?
I believe the diamondbacks were produced by mlb last year and they had to pay like $99 just to get their games. They couldnāt just buy mlb.tv
Kind ofā¦.Hereās how they did it down here in AZ for the Dbacks. There were 3 options for in market fans:
1) Dbacks tv for only non-national tv Dbacks games: $99
2) MLBTV for all games except the Dbacks: $150
3) Dbacks TV + MLBTV (essentially all games except the national tv ones): $199 ($50 combo discount)
Ok thanks. I already get MLV TV each year usually as a gift for my kid who is a baseball junkie while I am more of a Cards only watcher for the most part. An extra $50 a year for me and him to watch Cards games not the end of the world. Thanks again for the info.
Were the D-Backs game on any traditional cable channel?
My dad likes watching the Cardinals game but thereās about a 2% chance he figures out how to use an app. Itās a lot easier if he could just go to a channel like he always has,
Copy and paste job from a 3/27/2025 MLB article since I have YoutubeTV and they for sure donāt have it
āD-backs fans can easily locate where to watch games depending on the video distributor they utilize in the home television territory, including DIRECTV satellite and streaming, Comcast, Cox, Fubo, Spectrumā
So they did have more traditional cable tv options (Cox) and streaming services (Fubo, Directv)
Will be interesting to see what happens now that ESPN has inserted themselves in to this.
I donāt have athletic so I canāt read the article. Isnāt this a huge loss of income for the Cardinals? Is the contract from MLB the same? I guess they werenāt getting paid anyway by FDSN but Iād like to have better knowledge on the financial side of things
FDSN gave them a guaranteed sum. MLB will give them exactly how much the broadcast brought in each year.
Makes sense thanks for the info. Donāt think the team will be pulling much in the coming years but tv ratings still arenāt that bad.
Iām an hour south of St Louis. How am I going to stream the Cards this year?
I donāt have cable. Whatās the cheapest option? MLB.tv?
I believe so but you can just get Cards game instead of everything
You'll buy a local Cardinals.tv or whatever, analogous to your current FDSN subscription.
This isn't confirmed to be the path they follow yet.
So if I live in St. Louis will I be able to stream the games like I was last year?
Yes through a special MLB.tv Cardinals-only package, with no blackout restrictions. Assuming the team follows the model of every other team with MLB-controlled broadcasts from the last few years.
Thank you!
Not final yet.
...kinda
They dropped the contract, but they still have the option to negotiate a new one.
So im in the stl area. What does this mean? Im not renewing my fubo subscription when the season starts where will be need to subscribe to to watch all the games?
We don't know yet.
ooof...I paid the 198$ for annual access to the Blues and Cardinals, and just re-upped a few months ago...so, I reckon I just ate that money for the Cardinals games? š¤¦āāļø
Letās Go Blues!!!
Whatever, hopefully whatever platform we switch to is capable of streaming games less than 3 minutes behind the actual timing
Rest in piss bozo
MLB will sell you a āCardinals Onlyā subscription to stream games or you can pay twice as much and get all the teams via MLB.tv
It's not an either or. It's both. In market games for MLB produced teams are still blacked out on MLB.tv