The Big Lead

One MLB team lost 47 percent of its RSN viewers the last two seasons: report

By J.P. Hoornstra

Jul 29, 2024; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Bally Sports broadcaster Chip Caray jokes around with broadcaster Joe Buck during the third inning of a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers at Busch Stadium.
Jul 29, 2024; St. Louis, Missouri, USA; Bally Sports broadcaster Chip Caray jokes around with broadcaster Joe Buck during the third inning of a game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers at Busch Stadium. / Jeff Curry-Imagn Images
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Diamond Sports Group, the bankrupt parent company of the recently rebranded FanDuel Sports Network, reported a debt of $8.6 billion in its financial filings as of Feb. 2023.

Parsing the components of that debt is largely a matter left to the the U.S. Bankruptcy Court — far removed from any basketball, hockey or baseball venue where its regional sports networks are a visible presence.

At a hearing earlier this month, Diamond reportedly filed an amended reorganization plan, which creditors and other parties can vote for or against by Nov. 5. A confirmation hearing is scheduled for Nov. 14 in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of Texas.

Amid the pending reorganizaion of a billion-dollar corporation, it's less often noted how Bally's individual RSNs are performing. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch peeled back the curtain on the Cardinals' plans to move forward with or without FanDuel Sports Network Midwest.

According to Dan Caesar, "distribution problems, cord cutting and the Cardinals' continued lack of producing a playoff-qualifying team have been factors in the team setting record lows for its local television ratings in each of the past two seasons, among figures that date to 1990. Over that two-year span, Bally Sports Midwest's Cards telecasts lost a whopping 47% of their audience according to figures from viewership-monitoring firm Nielsen."

In 2023, the Cardinals suffered their first losing season since 2007. They rebounded to go 83-79 in 2024, but they missed the playoffs for the second consecutive year.

That's practically an extended drought for the Cardinals, who had reached the postseason the previous four years and never won fewer than 90 games during that stretch with the exception of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.

The numbers illustrate just how much viewership can hinge on a team's fortunes, among other variables at play. It's yet another reminder why the RSN demise is not linear, and can look sharper in some markets than others.

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