Thread: How Are You Watching the Cardinals This Year?

Morning friends! The Cardinals have their first spring baseball game set for Sunday. Jack Flaherty is set to take the mound to open the Cardinals exhibition season against the Nationals. Fox Sports Midwest, as it’s currently named, will be carrying the broadcast.

The full schedule, including TV and radio broadcasts, were made public on Thursday. FSM is planning to 12 of the Cardinals 24 games this Spring — all home game. 18 of the 24 games will be on KMOX.

That’s a lot of spring baseball! Too bad few of us can watch it!

If you’re like me, you’re a dedicated cord-cutter. My family has switched from DirecTV to cable to DISH over about a 7-year span, trying to cut our TV costs. Meanwhile, we found ourselves more and more interested in subscription-based streaming services, such as Netflix.

At one point, about two years ago, we had Spectrum cable, Netflix, and Amazon Prime. We were probably paying over $250 per month for the whole package plus internet.

That was just a ridiculous price commitment, considering the quantity of TV we were actually consuming. So, we cut the cord. We dropped down to Hulu + Live TV as our main provider and we’ve rotated through Netflix, Prime, Disney+, CBS All Access, PBS, and HBO Max based on what shows we wanted to watch at any given time. We’re now spending a fraction of what we were spending on television entertainment, and, honestly, the quality of the programming is significantly improved.

The wrench in the system has always been live sports. Hulu was a great option for my main teams — the Cardinals and the Chiefs. That disappeared not long after the World Series when Sinclair and Hulu (and basically every other online service provider) started bickering over costs. Hulu dropped FSM. So did Youtube TV and Sling, Fubo and others whose names I don’t even know.

I monitored the situation all winter, anticipating that someone would jump in to fill the gap, capitalize on the hole in the market, and offer the regional FS networks through a streaming service. It never happened.

If my understanding of the problem is correct, on the eve of Spring Training, the only way to watch the Cardinals through FSM this season is with a cable or satellite subscription or AT&T TV.

If it’s still free to read, Brian Walton did a really nice job putting together a summary of the situation over at The Cardinal Nation. It’s worth reading!

What I want to know from the greater Viva El Birdo’s community is how you are planning to watch the Cardinals this year?

Let us know where you live, how you’re going to watch, and even a potential price point. I get the sense from social media that there is real angst and more than a little bit of panic from Cardinals fans over this issue. So, hive mind initiate! Let’s help each other solve our Cardinals viewing problems.