***Official 2024 STL Cardinals Thread ***

[Pasta Little Brioni]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Can someone explain to me how MLB got itself into a scenario where its a total pain in the ass for most people to access their product without spending a fortune?

The Cardinals' popularity came from a massive radio audience across the Midwest and center western US.

The Cubs gained popularity even when terrible being on WGN all over the country.

The Braves had TBS.

Now its a ****ing pain in the ass to figure out how to get access unless you want to devote yourself to Direct TV or buy a streaming service just to watch the games. Its insane.

One of many reasons baseball is losing popularity. You also could watch them on local TV at one point. Fox Sports Midwest was at least somewhat accessible when they took it away from local broadcast. Now it’s a complete pain to watch games.

Meanwhile you can watch most Chiefs game on local TV or accessible networks (other than the bullshit 1 off streaming game a year. **** that) all across the Midwest including all of Missouri both ends of the state.

[oldandslow]

Originally Posted by Pasta Little Brioni

One of many reasons baseball is losing popularity. You also could watch them on local TV at one point. Fox Sports Midwest was at least somewhat accessible when they took it away from local broadcast. Now it’s a complete pain to watch games.

Meanwhile you can watch most Chiefs game on local TV or accessible networks (other than the bullshit 1 off streaming game a year. **** that) all across the Midwest including all of Missouri both ends of the state.

Honestly, I think this is one of BB largest problems. The access to the product is becoming darn near impossible.

I would just as soon the Cards would stream every game (no blackouts) and then I would buy it. Simple.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by Pasta Little Brioni

One of many reasons baseball is losing popularity. You also could watch them on local TV at one point. Fox Sports Midwest was at least somewhat accessible when they took it away from local broadcast. Now it’s a complete pain to watch games.

Meanwhile you can watch most Chiefs game on local TV or accessible networks (other than the bullshit 1 off streaming game a year. **** that) all across the Midwest including all of Missouri both ends of the state.

Who thought this was a great business model? Its insanity.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

Who thought this was a great business model? Its insanity.

Nobody.

Bally Sports got bought by Sinclair Media and Sinclair promptly drove it into a MFing mountain.

This was wholly a product of the Fox Sport group getting purchased and parted out. And I don't imagine MLB expected that to happen. The Regional Sports Networks were a perfect solution for baseball - baseball is largely a regional sport. The teams get followed by their local fanbase but it hasn't generated a true 'national' market for probably 50 years. There are just too damn many games played for folks to care about any single game on a Thursday where they don't have a rooting interest.

But the RSNs addressed that perfectly and brought a level of access that was largely unprecedented. What we have now is somehow STILL better than what we had in, say, 1997. But it's certainly a roll-back of 25 years of progress on that front.

It's a mess. But at least as it relates to this specific mess, I'm not positive there was anything else that MLB could've done.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Nobody.

Bally Sports got bought by Sinclair Media and Sinclair promptly drove it into a MFing mountain.

This was wholly a product of the Fox Sport group getting purchased and parted out. And I don't imagine MLB expected that to happen. The Regional Sports Networks were a perfect solution for baseball - baseball is largely a regional sport. The teams get followed by their local fanbase but it hasn't generated a true 'national' market for probably 50 years. There are just too damn many games played for folks to care about any single game on a Thursday where they don't have a rooting interest.

But the RSNs addressed that perfectly and brought a level of access that was largely unprecedented. What we have now is somehow STILL better than what we had in, say, 1997. But it's certainly a roll-back of 25 years of progress on that front.

It's a mess. But at least as it relates to this specific mess, I'm not positive there was anything else that MLB could've done.

I've never in my life had a problem accessing Cards games until FSMW got parceled off.

RSN were available on all cable and satellite platforms (before there even was streaming) since I started watching the Cards in 1995 or 96'. Most cable packages it was standard programming back in the day.

What I don't understand is how Bally or Sinclair or whoever owns the rights to the team's games doesn't seem to understand that accessibility is how they make money rather than continually feuding with service providers. And yes MLB seemed to get blindsided by it.

Hopefully in the end MLB takes the nonsense over and you can start getting your teams channels independently.

[raybec 4]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

I've never in my life had a problem accessing Cards games until FSMW got parceled off.

RSN were available on all cable and satellite platforms (before there even was streaming) since I started watching the Cards in 1995 or 96'. Most cable packages it was standard programming back in the day.

What I don't understand is how Bally or Sinclair or whoever owns the rights to the team's games doesn't seem to understand that accessibility is how they make money rather than continually feuding with service providers. And yes MLB seemed to get blindsided by it.

Hopefully in the end MLB takes the nonsense over and you can start getting your teams channels independently.

I sure have. There was a long stretch of time up until and slightly after the Big Mac/Sammy home run chase that if you weren't listening to Jack/Joe/Mike on the radio your only option was to check the box scores in the next day's paper.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Marcellus

I've never in my life had a problem accessing Cards games until FSMW got parceled off.

RSN were available on all cable and satellite platforms (before there even was streaming) since I started watching the Cards in 1995 or 96'. Most cable packages it was standard programming back in the day.

What I don't understand is how Bally or Sinclair or whoever owns the rights to the team's games doesn't seem to understand that accessibility is how they make money rather than continually feuding with service providers. And yes MLB seemed to get blindsided by it.

Hopefully in the end MLB takes the nonsense over and you can start getting your teams channels independently.

Yeah, being in KC, I didn't have Cardinals games until I went to Kirksville for college in 2000. So I don't really know when those RSNs really got up to speed. But yeah, mid-90s feels about right.

Prior to those, it was a wasteland for finding out of market games. I searched the box scores on the KC Star for results and read the 'local prospects' tracker when they had it in there. That's how I managed to know about Pujols earlier than most; being a Maple Woods kid, the Star tracked his performance. I knew his name well before I knew how the hell to pronounce it.

I think Sinclair did it on purpose. They were actively seeking to destroy the 'bundle' model so they could lean into a stand-alone streaming service or even a PPV model. And they just did a god-awful job with it. And badly underestimated how savvy fans would be. I don't think they expected that the fans would come to hate THEM rather than MLB. And that's exactly what happened.

Anyone that might bother to learn how to get a streaming service directly from Sinclair also learned that Sinclair essentially blew up an existing model that they really liked. So they gave them the bird.

Nothing else would explain why they blew a working model apart as thoroughly and rapidly as they did.

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Nobody.

Bally Sports got bought by Sinclair Media and Sinclair promptly drove it into a MFing mountain.

This was wholly a product of the Fox Sport group getting purchased and parted out. And I don't imagine MLB expected that to happen. The Regional Sports Networks were a perfect solution for baseball - baseball is largely a regional sport. The teams get followed by their local fanbase but it hasn't generated a true 'national' market for probably 50 years. There are just too damn many games played for folks to care about any single game on a Thursday where they don't have a rooting interest.

But the RSNs addressed that perfectly and brought a level of access that was largely unprecedented. What we have now is somehow STILL better than what we had in, say, 1997. But it's certainly a roll-back of 25 years of progress on that front.

It's a mess. But at least as it relates to this specific mess, I'm not positive there was anything else that MLB could've done.

Baseball has the perfect setup waiting to keep a regional model with national reach. Take all local rights in house - have games on MLB Network. Localize it where each region gets their teams games. In the actually city, simulcast the games on a local over the air television station. I'm sure one of the CWs or similar would love to have the Cardinals or Royals games on every night. Then stream the rest on MLB.TV where you pay for what kind of package you want.