{"id":557187,"date":"2026-02-06T04:33:42","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:33:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/557187\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T04:33:42","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T04:33:42","slug":"cardinals-broadcast-switch-loss-of-tv-money-leaves-revenue-gap-amid-on-field-struggles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/557187\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals\u2019 broadcast switch, loss of TV money leaves revenue gap amid on-field struggles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-franchises \">The St. Louis Cardinals\u2019 &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/03\/mlb-teams-face-revenue-hit-in-leaving-main-street-sports-group\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/03\/mlb-teams-face-revenue-hit-in-leaving-main-street-sports-group\/\">steep loss of TV revenue last season and next<\/a>,\u201d combined with on-field struggles and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/04\/15\/cardinals-face-steep-decline-in-tickets-sold-since-opening-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2025\/04\/15\/cardinals-face-steep-decline-in-tickets-sold-since-opening-day\/\">a decline in ticket sales<\/a>, are \u201cputting the storied franchise into uncharted waters,\u201d according to Erik Siemers of the ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL. Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III said Tuesday on\u202fthe \u201cArch City Report\u201d podcast that the team\u2019s move this week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/02\/sources-all-nine-mlb-teams-officially-leaving-main-street-nba-and-nhl-in-holding-pattern\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/02\/02\/sources-all-nine-mlb-teams-officially-leaving-main-street-nba-and-nhl-in-holding-pattern\/\">to leave its longtime broadcaster, Main Street Sports Group<\/a>, for its own MLB-produced streaming channel will \u201cresult in a loss\u201d of $18M-$20M in TV revenue this year, on top of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2024\/11\/07\/st-louis-cardinals-diamond-sports-broadcast-deal?hl=cardinals&amp;sc=0&amp;publicationSource=search\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2024\/11\/07\/st-louis-cardinals-diamond-sports-broadcast-deal?hl=cardinals&amp;sc=0&amp;publicationSource=search\">the $18M less it agreed to last year in a deal with Main Street<\/a>. How to fill what is a nearly $40M loss in revenue over two years while \u201crebuilding the team\u2019s on-field roster and maintaining fan interest\u201d is what DeWitt said is \u201ca good question.\u201d And he does not \u201cimmediately have answers.\u201d DeWitt, however, was \u201cclear to draw a distinction between decisions made for financial reasons vs. those that are strictly baseball-related.\u201d DeWitt \u201cblanches\u201d at the term \u201crebuild,\u201d and even more so at \u201cthe thought that the club is undergoing a \u2018teardown.\u2019\u201d He \u201cprefers to employ a phrase\u201d used by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/01\/20\/st-louis-cardinals-bloom-emphasizes-long-term-vision-in-franchise-rebuild\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/01\/20\/st-louis-cardinals-bloom-emphasizes-long-term-vision-in-franchise-rebuild\/\">Cardinals President of Baseball Operations Chaim Bloom<\/a>, saying \u201cwe\u2019re not conceding anything while we do this\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.bizjournals.com\/stlouis\/news\/2026\/02\/04\/cardinals-finances-dewitt-bloom-tv-losses.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL, 2\/4<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The St. Louis Cardinals\u2019 &#8220;steep loss of TV revenue last season and next,\u201d combined with on-field struggles and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487857,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2403],"tags":[5,160,4,673,67,4311,4310],"class_list":{"0":"post-557187","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-st-louis-cardinals","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-cardinals","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-st-louis","12":"tag-st-louis-cardinals","13":"tag-stlouis","14":"tag-stlouiscardinals"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116021825744749886","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}