It’s the proverbial canary in the coal mine.
Recently, the Bally Sports Networks owned by Diamond Sports — whose bankruptcy proceedings continue — were re-branded as “Fan Duel Sports Networks.”
One of those channels carries Cardinals games. Thursday, the Cardinals re-upped with Diamond for 2025, and here are the details via Katie Woo in The Athletic:
A reworked television deal secures at least some of the revenue the Cardinals were concerned about. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but according to the Sports Business Journal, team president Bill DeWitt III estimated the rights fee deduction “a little bit north of 20 percent.”
This, along with a projected decline in gate revenue based on stadium attendance (the Cardinals failed to record 3 million fans for the first time in 18 seasons), will impact payroll. Mozeliak acknowledged as much on Wednesday.
“We’re definitely going to have lower revenue from our TV package and we’re probably going to have a lower ticket revenue than we’ve seen in past years,” Mozeliak said.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Cardinals were owed approximately $78 million in rights fees for 2025.
The new channel will also have a DTC (direct-to-consumer) streaming option similar to what Marquee Sports Network offers for in-market Cubs fans, for $20 a month.
But look at those revenue numbers above — a “bit north of 20 percent” less than the Cardinals were previously getting (I think Woo meant “reduction,” not “deduction”). That’s about $16 million less for the Cardinals to spend on payroll in 2025, if the estimate is correct.
This is what happened to the Twins last year, as I wrote here a year ago. Minnesota’s payroll dropped from about $155 million in 2023 to about $130 million in 2024.
And there are several other teams in similar situations. I noted here a month ago that MLB is taking over production for three former Diamond Sports teams (Brewers, Guardians and Twins). Setups like this have been fine for watching games, but teams haven’t made a lot of money on them, as noted in that article.
This is all the “canary in the coal mine” that’s eventually, I believe, going to affect the negotiations between MLB and the MLBPA after the 2026 season. While the Cubs and Marquee are not yet affected by this sea change in the way baseball games are watched by fans (streaming instead of cable/satellite), I suspect they will be somewhere down the line. The era of the huge regional sports network rights fees is ending. What replaces it isn’t likely to bring in as much money for baseball teams.
What happens after that? No one knows, but in the examples of the Twins and Cardinals, we have already seen payroll reductions because they have less TV money.
It’s not going to be any different anywhere else, I don’t think.
As always, we await developments.