The St. Louis Cardinals are sticking with Diamond Sports Group as their TV broadcast partner, and the team will also be available via streaming in-market.
The Cardinals and Diamond announced a renegotiated multi-year deal on Thursday. The parties did not disclose the length of the deal or the rights fee.
Diamond Sports Group is hoping a federal judge will confirm its plan to emerge from bankruptcy next week. The timing of the Cardinals announcement was not a surprise; the objection deadline for MLB in the bankruptcy case is 4 p.m. CT. Thursday.
The Cards’ station was recently renamed FanDuel Sports Network Midwest, from Bally Sports Midwest. The Cardinals are part owners of the network.
The team had not previously granted Diamond streaming rights, or as they’re technically known, direct-to-consumer (DTC) rights, but the Cardinals will now be available in the newly named FanDuel Sports Network app.
That means fans in Cardinals territory will now be able to subscribe to games without having to sign up for a full cable or satellite package. Those who subscribe to those services can access the games by authenticating their pay TV credentials. Pricing for the streaming plans was not announced Thursday.
The deal is notable because most MLB teams carried by Diamond have not granted the company DTC rights. The league and the broadcaster rarely saw eye-to-eye on the value of those rights.
The arrangement is also notable because entering Thursday, it seemed possible the Cards could join the six other teams being broadcast by MLB this year. Instead, the team stayed in the old model — something that likely gives it more cashflow certainty compared to the league’s broadcasting model.
Diamond carried a dozen MLB teams in 2024, and at least four are leaving the broadcaster next year, three of them for MLB.
Diamond last month said that among the eight other teams it carried last year, it only wanted to keep one team’s contract as is: the Atlanta Braves’. The rest would need to be renegotiated, or the teams could go elsewhere.
That left seven clubs in limbo: the Cardinals, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays.
As of midday Thursday, Diamond was known to have three MLB teams in the fold for 2025: the Braves, the Marlins (who agreed to a deal last month) and now the Cards.
But the TV future of five clubs, the Angels, Reds, Tigers, Royals and Rays remains unclear entering Thursday’s objection deadline.
MLB may still file an objection Thursday afternoon, which could be leverage ahead of Diamond’s Nov. 14 confirmation hearing if the parties keep negotiating over those teams’ futures in coming days.
The Cardinals’ station is not formally a part of the bankruptcy process because it is a joint-venture station, owned by the team and Diamond. But the Cardinals and other teams with joint-venture stations are nonetheless functionally drawn into the proceeding.
“We are pleased to enhance and expand our long-term partnership with Diamond and FanDuel Sports Network Midwest,” Cards president Bill DeWitt III said in a news release Thursday. “We valued the continuity for our fans of staying on the same network as the Blues, and we are excited that we will now be able to expand access to our games and other great Cardinals content across multiple platforms next year.”
Said Diamond CEO David Preschlack in the release: “We are excited about deepening our relationship with the Cardinals and expanding our reach by delivering games to fans on a DTC basis. As we progress towards emergence from bankruptcy, we remain committed to providing fans in the Midwest region with high-quality broadcasts through our linear and digital offerings and meeting fans where they are in the evolving viewership model. We remain in discussions with our other MLB team partners on go-forward plans, and we are confident that our linear and digital framework drives maximum value.”
(Photo: Chris Coduto / Getty Images)
