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I wouldn’t worry about the transistor radios just yet. Their will definitely be Cardinal games on TV. My guess is you should probably invest in the ESPN app or MLB app.
Wonder how the blackout works in this situation for those in the local territory
If MLB were to take on the games, people in the local market would be able to get the games as well and not be blacked out. We will have to see how it is impacted if it is someone else and the contract language they negotiate, but then if it is someone else they likely have their cable package for local folks.
Does anyone have any definitive answer on where someone in central Illinois will be able to watch Cardinals games this year? If MLB takes over, will it just be a part of MLB extra innings, but not blacked out for those of us in the traditional blackout area? If it’s a stand alone product, will it be available as an add on to YouTube tv, prime,, etc, or just cable systems? Spring training is coming up. As crummy as we’re gonna be, I still want to watch.
My eight ball says “reply hazy, ask again.” Thank you for your response. I appreciate it. I just poked the thread to see if anything has been decided/announced.
After looking around the web, Fubo’s website says you can subscribe to FanDuel only, and it shows the Cardinals. I don’t know if it has been updated since FanDuel missed their payments, so I have my doubts.
Main Street Sports Group could be forced to file for Chapter 7 and liquidate as soon as next week if last-minute financing falls through, sources tell @TomFriendWriter.
That outcome could send FanDuel Sports Networks dark midseason & accelerate nine MLB teams opting out over… pic.twitter.com/LyEKrQtntV
— Sports Business Journal (@SBJ) January 30, 2026
Sources: Six of the nine MLB teams with Main Street Sports are moving their media rights to the league. The Brewers, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Cardinals and Reds told MLB of their plans over the weekend.
The other three–Braves, Tigers, Angels–have not been decided.
Much more in…
— John Ourand (@Ourand_Puck) February 2, 2026
Basic press release.
Cardinals and MLB to Launch Cardinals.TV for 2026 Game Telecasts
Link to Cardinals FAQs. Pricing info is available, but channels and commentators TBD.
https://www.mlb.com/cardinals/schedule/programming
MLB Trade Rumors has an informative article.
https://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2026/02/mlb-to-take-over-broadcasts-for-six-additional-teams.html
For fans, this is great news as accessibility is much higher now. It isn’t ideal you have to pay for Cardinals.tv to watch in addition to MLB.tv if you are in market, but honestly it makes sense from a business perspective. For the team, not so much as I think MLBTR said it was half the pay that teams previously got of their RSN deal.
I didn’t notice any quality problems when watching a few Diamondbacks or Padres games last year. I will be curious if MLB sticks with the same broadcasters or if they try to save money and get someone less known aka expensive than Caray.
To put the differences into perspective, it looks like the team will get $55 million less annually than originally planned before Main Street hit their financial difficulties.
Couple this with lower attendance and everything that goes with it and it seems the team’s revenues are likely way down.
To the broadcaster question, it is TBD, but the general feeling is that they will try to keep the same on-camera personnel. With the first spring training games less than three weeks away, they have a lot of details to iron out in a hurry.
IMO, it was smart to get the prices on the table early so fans know that Cardinals.TV will be affordable.
The #STLCards new TV deal with MLB is expected to net them around $20 million, which is a $40 million drop from the $60 million they expected to get from FanDuel.
And that deal with FanDuel was a $15 million drop from their contract with Bally Sports, which was $75 million.
— Josh Jacobs (@joshjaco98) February 4, 2026
What this practically means is that we can’t expect that payroll will be going back to 2018-2024 levels anytime soon. I would expect a $55M cut at the base level, so our $170M becomes $115M. We will be Milwaukee or Cleveland.
Of course, things could change if the market takes off a little more. But we are now officially a “have not.”
The next two years will be rough tv revenue wise but Manfred keeps talking about new tv packages coming in 2028 or 2029, although without much detail.
We are certainly becoming closer to Milwaukee and Cleveland with the main difference being that Cardinals have the potential for much larger ticket revenes once they emerge from the rebuild. The Cardinals might get back to 3 million someday but the Brewers and Guardians most likely will never hit that number.
Not sure what all of this means.
Currently I get about every game on my DirecTV Extra Innings package.
Will I still have access to every game on DirecTV starting in 2026?
Yes. The changes affect those who live in the Cardinals regional area only. Those who receive and watch FanDuel MW channel directly.
If you are curious which areas are affected, see the map in my article on the home page.
You said Yes.
Does that mean Yes, I will be able to get ALL mlb games on my DirecTV package? Including Cardinal games?
$20,000,000 at $100 a pop for the season puts the number of subscribers they would need at 200,000. Last year the Cards broadcasts average 50Kish a game in viewers, but that is viewers and there were probably quite a few people who paid the cost and only watched a couple of games a month. Unsure if that gets yout o 200,000 though. Ads are roughly 10-30% of the expected revenue, but I assume that would go to the cost of covering the costs of broadcasting itself as the true cost is higher than $20,000,000.
It would be interesting to know the numbers of how many people actually do pay for Cardinals.tv. I can’t financially understand how RSPs would have made even close to a profit and the $20,000,000 payout from MLB is probably about break even if I had to guess.
There are some really smart people here some of which I think have a finance background so maybe interesting to hear their take.
Rats, I am not an expert on DirecTV. My understanding is that if you had the right package in 2025, you could get FanDuel Sports Midwest if you live in market. MLB Extra Innings was offered as an add-on for out of market customers to see many Cardinals games.
Whether DirecTV will carry the replacement Cardinals.TV in 2026 for in-market customers, I do not know. I would assume Cardinals games will be a part of the MLB EI package again in 2026 for out of market customers.
I have no idea where you live and what you are subscribing to currently, so this is the best I can offer you. My advice is to pester DirecTV for information once they have it.
Their regional tv revenue has dropped from $75 million with Bally to b/w $57-60 million with MainStreet/FanDuel to now $20 million with MLB.tv; that is a pretty drastic decline of around 73% I think in 3 years or so.
I doubt they were caught off guard by this, as the possibility had to be high after Bally could not get it to work in 2024 and they had to renegotiate at a lower rate. I don’t think it is a coincidence that they also started slashing payroll around that time and focused on draft and development.
They probably need a plan to keep in market older viewers, b/c just from my experience w/ my parents older viewers have a hard time with sports streaming Apps.
Maybe with the new CBA there is some light at the end of the tunnel.
Bad info provided initially. It is now estimated at $40 million per year, not $20.
Important clarification on this:#STLCards are expecting to receive $40 million in their new broadcast deal, a $20 million decrease in the $60 million that had expected to receive from FanDuel.
Still a significant drop, not as drastic as I had originally shared. https://t.co/Y2T16Bwuby
— Josh Jacobs (@joshjaco98) February 5, 2026
https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2026/02/04/cardinals-tv-rights/
Just more of the same.
It’s really bad.
I hope T-Mobile comes through with free MLB.TV this year! I moved from Terre Haute where I was in Cardinal territory to the north side of Indy, so I no longer qualify for Cardinals.TV. Guess I will find out in a month or two!
Has anyone out here downloaded the Cardinal.TV app? I looked for it on the Google play Store and through my firestick and can’t find it. I also signed into my free MLB.TV account and wasn’t able to find a way to add it. As of yesterday it wasn’t an option to add to Amazon Prime video, fubo or YouTube tv. I hate the thought of getting a DirecTV package or cable subscription just to watch us lose 90+ games.
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