These are extremely complicated transactions. I am guessing you hit on part of this, that MLB wants long term control. So trying a start-up right before the CBA might cost a lot of money and then may not be viable after the new CBA. So waiting probably is not the worst strategy. Having said that, the Cards via KMOX had one of the widest nets in all of MLB for many years. They appear to have squandered that advantage over the last 20 years. One poster on this thread questioned the Dewitts business acumen. Running a baseball/social media company is dramatically different than running a bunch of fast food franchises, which is the Dewitt's expertise.Whatashame wrote: ↑24 Feb 2026 10:39 am I don’t know why the Cardinals haven’t. They keep getting less and less from whatever entity decides to broadcast their games. Just bring it in house and run the broadcasts on their own. Contact the Blues and possibly the Billikens and set up a sports network. There is a lot of regional support.
The only possible long term problem I see is if MLB has a long term plan to try and control all baseball teams coverage. This would be very difficult because of the discrepancy in media markets but I’m wondering if the long term strategy for MLB and their attempt to implement a cap/floor with aggressive revenue sharing isn’t to try and control the local market revenues.
Over the last 20 years, the Cards have lost the KMOX bandwith, did not extend their brand into Asia/Japan despite having a headstart there with So Taguchi and have fell signficantly behind in Latin America baseball despite having two of the most iconic Latin American players ever in Albert Pujols and Yadi Molina. What really happened with the Dewitts is they got lucky on a couple draft picks, Jocketty filled in some big pieces to win in 2006. Despite the criticism MO takes on here, he filled in the pieces to win in 2011 and go on a 4 year run making the NLCS each year and a second WS appearance in 2013.
Iphones starting taking over the world in 2010-2013 which is when social media and its economic power dramatically shifted. It is clear now that the Dewitt's did not understand that. The outcome was losing market share and falling behind. They took what they thought was a safe route by hitching to the RSNs and neglected everything else. Social media is fickle so the Cards can catch up by making the brand better. But, that requires investment, star players and reaching into every possible social media corner. Waiting a year to do what the Braves did, won't put them much further behind. But unless baseball revenue shares, if they want to be a big player instead of the Pirates, they will be forced down the Braves route.