One of MLB’s most venerable and successful franchises is now in the midst of a large-scale transition.
Cardinals owner Bill DeWitt Jr. said Wednesday that he is changing the club’s leadership structure to help enable a long-term succession plan and keep the club in the family. DeWitt’s son, current team president Bill DeWitt III, becomes CEO and will expand his responsibilities to include oversight of the Cardinals’ business and baseball operations.
The club also promoted Anuk Karunaratne to club president, and he will assume the role that the younger DeWitt previously held. Chaim Bloom will continue as president of baseball operations.
“In formalizing these roles, we’re just firming up the leadership structure that will lay the foundation for the next wave of organizational and team success,” said DeWitt III.
Before the season started, DeWitt Jr., one of MLB’s longest-tenured owners, hinted that a change like this was soon forthcoming. For now, though, he will continue as the Cardinals’ chairman and principal owner.
“Our family has been in baseball for a long time, and I think it will continue,” he said at the team’s Winter Warm-Up event. “That’s the plan. I’m getting to an age [84] where I’m not going to be around forever. Bill is at a perfect age [58] to continue on for a long time. That’s our goal.”
Big Track Record
Under the elder DeWitt, the Cardinals have been one of MLB’s most consistently successful teams, on and off the field. Since DeWitt became team chairman in 1996, the Cardinals have won two World Series, four National League pennants, and have reached the playoffs 17 times.
The team has also been a consistently strong performer in attendance, and it opened the new Busch Stadium in 2006, with that facility hosting the MLB All-Star Game three years later. Ballpark Village, the mixed-use development surrounding Busch Stadium, predated the larger and much more heralded Battery in Atlanta by more than a decade, and has been influential in its own way.
DeWitt Jr. has additionally been a close confidante to current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred and his predecessor, Bud Selig, while serving on several key league committees.
The last several seasons, however, have seen a marked downturn for the Cardinals. Amid a third straight non-playoff season in 2025, attendance at Busch Stadium sank to 2.25 million, a non-pandemic low at the current ballpark. St. Louis also posted MLB’s largest year-over-year attendance decrease each of the last two seasons. On the media front, the Cardinals were part of the fallout from the decline of regional sports network operator Main Street Sports Group, and its local games are now produced and distributed by MLB.
In the wake of all that, the Cardinals pledged reforms last offseason and that the team was “going to make every effort to get back” to their customary winning ways.
So far in 2026, that’s happening as a still-rebuilding St. Louis club is confounding many preseason expectations. Entering Wednesday’s games, the Cardinals were seven games over .500 and held the NL’s top wild-card slot.
Attendance, however, is still down, with the Cardinals trailing last year’s attendance pace by 6% with a per-game average of 28,049.
“The way our fans show up night after night, that’s when the Cardinals are at their best,” Karunaratne said. “That support is not something we can assume. We have to earn it. Every single day.”
