This answers the question I had yesterday, which the Cards didn't answer in their presser, and now we probably know why they didn't.

To be precise? It's estimated at a 23 percent drop, or about $17.25M per year:

The Cards were willing to do so despite the associated revenue losses. Wyman and Goold report that they’ll take a 23% reduction next season compared to what they would’ve made on the prior contract. With the previous deal calling for roughly $75MM in rights fees, the Cardinals stand to drop roughly $17.25MM to the $57-58MM range. The team did not specify the length of this contract beyond calling it a multi-year partnership. Evan Drellich and Katie Woo of the Athletic report that the deal does not stretch into the 2030s and affords some measure of flexibility depending on the future state of sports media.

There you go.

EDIT: Lots of good comments.

First, I agree that this was the best option the Cards had now. And, yes, they're not stuck longer term.

Second, even after their current contracts run out, Yankees, Cubs, etc. aren't joining the rest of MLB. Ain't happening.

Third, my main focus was on how this will affect free agency, re-signing, etc decisions by the team through, let's say, at least 2027, maybe 2028.

In other words? If you didn't already know Helsley is on the trade block, etc., … this makes that more official.

EDIT 2: Couple of other notes. In an AP story, Mo himself was quoted talking about the increasing small/big market disparity. In same story, Bor-ass said owners are just poor-mouthing again, specifically cited the stRangers looking for other options while rejecting (for now) the Diamond-shaped haircut. That said, contra Scotty, the stRangers announced that they were looking for options a month ago and haven't landed any yet. AND, Scotty is doing this in his usual context of plumping for his free agent clients.

7 comments

  1. Wow. Is the future of sports media really that bad that this makes sense for the team? Where there really no other networks that wanted to pick up the team? How does this make sense?

  2. This is still a huge amount of revenue. I did (extremely) rough calculations on how much money the Cardinals could expect to make with DTC through their own network and estimated anywhere from $20-40m.

  3. I think length is going to matter here if it’s only a couple years so Diamond can right their ship nbd. If it’s longer that’s not great if you want the team to keep their best players once they lose salary control or sign the best FAs.

    Sports do have the advantage of being the only thing people watch live anymore so the advertising money should be decent, but that was true under every deal in recent history.

  5. Cardinals want to make it work because they are part owner of the RSN, short term haircut in hopes the asset retains some value. No guarantee going the MLB produced route would be more profitable either, especially in the shorter term because of start up costs.

    But they also seem to be swimming against the rest of the league, last I heard MLB is still opposing the restructuring because it leaves lots of teams out in the cold. I believe there is an important hearing today, been rescheduled a few times already this week, negotiations probably going on in the background.

  6. I am surprised the DeWallets didn’t work on building their own network like the Yankees have. Well, not forward thinking has put the Cardinals organization in the position they are in.

  7. The further it gets from people being able to click a few buttons and see a Cardinals game, the worse the long-term outlook for baseball is.

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