That's the essence of the Blues' new television deal, which takes effect next season. For the first time, every game will be televised — either in the local package or by a national network. But also for the first time the Blues will become the first major St. Louis sports team to eliminate "free TV'' from its local package, as all those contests will be on cable/satellite's Fox Sports Midwest probably beginning next season but at the most in two years.

KPLR (Channel 11) has aired Blues games for most of their history and continuously since the 1997-98 season and is carrying 21 this season. And while the new deal contains a provision that there could be some over-the-air telecasts, that is at the discretion of Fox Sports Midwest and seems unlikely.

"Next year is to be determined what role KPLR will have,'' Blues CEO Peter McLoughlin said. "Beyond that (season), all games will be on Fox.''

McLoughlin said club officials carefully considered the fact they would be the trailblazer among the local franchises to leave broadcast television, but said the positives outweigh the negatives.

"Our feeling was that Fox's distribution in St. Louis and beyond is so strong that the fan who wants to follow the Blues and Cardinals will do so,'' he said. "We felt secure in our decision that the benefit of getting all the games on television outweighed the potential loss of viewers who don't have Fox — because the core sports fan does. The ability to get all of our games televised is really critical.''

But there are only five games this season not being shown, hardly a significant number. However, McLoughlin said the club heard "loud and clear'' from fans wanting all contests on TV, and added that the plan is to have all Blues telecasts produced in high definition by the 2010-11 season.

Cable holds a big advantage over conventional TV in bidding for rights, because it receives subscriber fees in addition to advertising. Over-the-air television traditionally has had only ad revenue, although that is changing somewhat as KMOV proved in its recent dealings with Charter cable.

That double-barreled revenue stream is a big reason marquee events have migrated to cable/satellite. The NFL is the only one of the major four American sports that still has all its postseason games on broadcast TV. And the BCS football games are headed to ESPN next season, which also has all four rounds of the British Open starting in 2010.

BY THE NUMBERS

About 86 percent of homes in the market receive cable or satellite, according to Nielsen Media Research, up from 67 percent in 2000. And that figure is expected to rise this year with the loss of analog signals nationwide next month.

"We don't want to have any of our fans not be able to see the games,'' McLoughlin said. "But our feeling is the hard-core sports fan in St. Louis is a cable or satellite subscriber and will be able to see the games.''

Still, Blues contests on free TV far outdraw those on cable — meaning that there may be more sports fans who don't have cable or satellite than the above theory indicates. The rating for Blues telecasts on KPLR this season is 42 percent better than those on FSM, and the difference in the three preceding seasons was 44 percent. The pattern is similar for the Cardinals, who have two seasons remaining on their over-the-air deal with KSDK (Channel 5).

The tradeoff is volume. FSM general manager Jack Donovan points out that before cable, there were only about 40 Cardinals and 25 Blues games televised locally.

"Now you'll get every Cardinals game and every Blues game'' if you have cable/satellite, he said. "Some people can't get the games, but most people will get all of the games. In the aggregate, that's a much better deal for almost everybody. ... That's a reason for celebration.''