ST. LOUIS — The St. Louis Cardinals reached a new deal with the Diamond Sports Group weeks after the company announced it would not broadcast the games without a new deal.
The Cardinals and Diamond Sports Group announced the new, multi-year deal in a press release Thursday morning. The games will be broadcast on the newly-renamed FanDuel Sports Midwest.
The deal includes a direct-to-consumer option that will let fans watch games with a FandDuel Sports Network subscription rather than requiring a cable subscription.
“We are pleased to enhance and expand our long-term partnership with Diamond and FanDuel Sports Network Midwest," Cardinals President Bill DeWitt III said in a press conference. "We valued the continuity for our fans of staying on the same network as the Blues, and we are excited that we will now be able to expand access to our games and other great Cardinals content across multiple platforms next year.”
In October, a lawyer representing Diamond Sports in bankruptcy proceedings said the company did not plan to broadcast the games of Cardinals and 11 other teams without a new deal.
Diamond Sports has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the Southern District of Texas since it filed for protection in March 2023. The company said in a financial filing last year that it had debt of $8.67 billion.
A final hearing on Diamond's reorganization plan is scheduled for Nov. 14.
As part of its reorganization plan, Diamond voided the contracts of the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays and will attempt to rework the deals of the other four franchises that are part owners of their RSNs — the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels and Miami Marlins.
Diamond CEO David Preschlack said in a statement they remain in discussions with the other franchises.
The team's previous TV deal, a 15-year deal that Forbes reported was worth more than $1 billion, was signed in 2018 with Fox Sports Midwest. Diamond Media Group bought the local Fox Sports networks from Disney in 2019 after Disney and 21st Century Fox merged.
Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
Diamond changed the name of the channel on Oct. 21 after reaching a naming-rights deal with online gambling company FanDuel.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.