St. Louis Cardinals, Fox Sports Sign $1 Billion TV Contract

The St. Louis Cardinals have been the most consistent team in baseball over the past 15 years, and Fox Sports Midwest rewarded that distinction Thursday with a new massive contract.

According to Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the 15-year deal, which will go into effect when the current agreement ends after the 2017 season, is worth upward of $1 billion.

One person who is especially happy with the new contract is Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., according to Goold:

This does give us a great deal of stability over the next 15 years and does so in a market that has been shifting. It has a nice increase in rights fees as well as the equity component and as a whole it will allow us to remain as competitive as we have been with our payroll, with our spending in the international markets, with our activity in amateur markets and other ways we have invested in development. We have certainty going forward.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2534944-st-louis-cardinals-fox-sports-sign-1-billion-tv-contract

This is unfair, and MLB needs to do something ASAP. First is the pattern of widening wealth disparity among franchises. Small markets in that division -- Cincinnati, Pittsburgh and Milwaukee -- pretty much just had their futures handed to them.

But even more troubling is that media is really "underwriting" MLB franchises by paying outlandish broadcasting fees in exchange for a lock on broadcasting rights. And in doing so they are helping to foster on-field success to specifically increase their ratings!

This is not good for competition. This is not good for baseball. We need the salary cap now!