One of the biggest recurring storylines that has followed the St. Louis Cardinals over the last three years has been the uncertainty surrounding their television rights, what kind of revenue they'll receive in the midst of that, and how fans will access broadcasts moving forward.
While things seemed to finally stabilize this past season, a bombshell report from Sports Business Journal on Sunday morning revealed that the Cardinals are in flux once again, as FanDuel Sports Network's parent company, Main Street Sports Group, missed its December payment to the Cardinals, and now there is real uncertainty again about the status of the Cardinals broadcasts in 2026.
The Cardinals are once again being hit with uncertainty regarding their television rights and revenue. How will this impact the team's finances and how fans watch in 2026?
Anuk Karunaratne, the Cardinals' senior vice president of business operations, assured fans on Sunday that the Cardinals will have both a cable and direct-to-consumer option for fans to watch games in 2026, but he did not indicate that their relationship with the Main Street Sports Group and FanDuel Sports Network would be part of that solution.
The Cardinals may have to take the route that clubs like the Mariners, Padres, Rockies, Twins, Guardians, and Diamondbacks have and fold into the MLB's media group, or perhaps another bidder will see an opportunity here and swoop in to acquire the Cardinals' television and streaming rights for the near future. The future of MLB's regional sports network strategy and overall media packages will be a major topic in the upcoming collective bargaining agreement.
On the field, the Cardinals were already scaling back payroll again ahead of this news, as the Willson Contreras trade last night now puts their payroll at just over $100 million, an almost $80 million decrease from what their payroll was ahead of the 2024 season. While the Cardinals were not going to be big spenders this winter, this uncertainty may make it more difficult for Chaim Bloom to make savvy free agent signings that the Cardinals could later flip into prospects, and it could even hurt their ability to sign guys like Masyn Winn, Ivan Herrera, or JJ Wetherholt to extensions. That is all speculative as of now and something to keep an eye on.
