The television future of Cardinals baseball, along with ten other franchises, continues to be unknown as a bankruptcy court was reportedly rejected by Major League Baseball.
A reported $150 million investment in the Diamond Sports Group by Amazon has been turned down according to the New York Post.
They declined a deal that would have granted Amazon streaming rights for 11 teams including the Cardinals. That's in part because the deal would have lasted multiple years and would have required MLB to grant the remaining streaming rights for Diamond teams to Amazon.
Cory Provus, who is the new lead for the Minnesota Twins on television replacing Dick Bremer, told WCCO's Vineeta Sawkar that a slow offseason for the entire sport is due to the ongoing TV issues MLB is having. The Twins are one of four franchises to have no clarity on their TV payments for 2024.
"I think the Twins are certainly in that boat," says Provus. "We were supposed to get an update this week in federal court for how Bally, Diamond and Major League Baseball is going to move forward in terms of the regional networks, and how that's impacting the Twins and other teams."
Provus says there's no question the uncertainty is causing issues for the Twins and other teams when it comes to personnel decisions.
"We were hoping to get clarity," he says. "That's been pushed back and that's holding back a lot of teams who don't know what to do, what the TV revenue will be or if they'll get any in the first place."
That decision now will be pushed back until at least mid-January if not later.
The potential investment, reported last month by the Wall Street Journal, would have led to Amazon becoming the streaming provider for Diamond’s regional networks.
The NBA struck a similar deal with Diamond in November, cutting rights fees this season in exchange for rights being released back to the league after the ongoing 2023-24 season. The NHL followed suit.
MLB seems to be taking a different path however, and the season is getting close now with pitchers and catchers due to report for spring training in just over a month.
NOTE: WCCO Radio / Audacy is the radio home of Minnesota Twins baseball.