There had been optimism that Cardinals and Blues fans who don’t get Fox Sports Midwest could purchase the station independently in 2021.
But now, the soonest it can happen is in 2022.
Sinclair Broadcast Group owns FSM and other regional sports networks, and on its quarterly earnings call last week, Sinclair president and CEO Chris Ripley said: “We are working on a direct-to-consumer product that is expected to launch in 2022 and will allow unauthenticated users the ability to access — and even subscribe to — certain content from our RSNs.”
Sunday is the Cardinals' first spring training game (opening day is April 1), and thus a reported 10% of the Cardinals’ regular audience won’t get to watch Fox Sports Midwest's production.