Why the blame for low Bally Sports Midwest numbers for Cards home opener sits with the access more than the roster

But a 71 win season doesn’t help maintain enthusiasm.

Here’s the sad truth: Cardinals fans are entitled, and that’s not an insult. The fanbase as a whole has become accustomed to winning seasons. History gives them a street to walk down and expect more from their team.

Reread that last part again. A winning season doesn’t exactly mean the playoffs were seen, especially in today’s redesigned game, one that serves short attention spans and likes fastballs and homers. It’s a more competitive league, but a winning record is a sacred thing for a team expected to be good.

Good enough for the postseason? Maybe. There are few guarantees, even in a league where the wildcard teams play a series now instead of a single game. Up until 2023, the Cardinals largely avoided worse-than-.500 ball seasons. It wasn’t 71-win bad since the 1990s. That’s a benchmark that Walt Jocketty and John Mozeliak ran teams largely avoided. Heck, Mozeliak surely heard those boos on opening day last Thursday.

Times are different. So, when the television ratings came out for the home opener and they were the lowest since 2001, there wasn’t a lot of surprise. A playoff-less season combined with being 20 games worse than even plays a big part. But the team still has marketable guns on their roster.

The biggest issue with the numbers should come from the company going bankrupt. Bally Sports Midwest’s app also stinks and the other ways to find Cardinals games is a lot harder than it was in say… 2001. Last year’s season ratings were bad, the worst in a long time. Tagging the blame on a lackluster offseason is easy work, but there’s more to it. It’s Bally that started alienating fans, the ones on farms and hard to find a solid signal areas.

I’d place as more blame on the fact that baseball games became harder and more expensive to locate. I wonder what the radio ratings were for KMOX. Probably solid. The television route carries more roadblocks. Those are facts.

Winning more games brings more people to the yard and possibly over the paywall or high price wall to see more future games, but there needs to be more happiness distributed by the networks-or whoever takes over television rights for St. Louis next year.

We saw how empty the stadium could get during the second half last summer. If play tails off this year, those sights will return and the TV numbers may not see a benefit from less eyes at the field. That’s an old idea, way before tablets and phones told you everything you need to know about what’s going on with a live game.

Times are tough, and may not get better for a little while. I’d suggest winning more games and winning some of those fans back who may have stopped at the dollar sign train track.

Thanks for reading.