Will you eventually be watching the Cardinals and Blues on ESPN Sports Midwest?

It sure looks as if the days are numbered for Fox Sports Midwest, which is in the process of being sold to ESPN owner The Walt Disney Company.

It is part of a recently announced mega-deal in which Disney is buying many 21st Century Fox properties. It is acquiring not only 22 Fox-owned regional sports networks around the country, including FSM, but also the FX and National Geographic channels. Disney also gets the 20th Century Fox movie studio, several Marvel comic book characters and Fox’s stake in Hulu.

The entire deal reportedly involves $52.4 billion in stock.

Not included in the sale is over-the-air Fox Sports, which airs locally on KTVI (Channel 2), as well as cable outlets FS1, FS2 and Big Ten Network. They stay with Fox.

Although the Fox-ESPN deal has been agreed upon, nothing is imminent. The sale needs approval of federal regulators and while many analysts think it will go through, it is likely to take a least a year to close. It is expected to be business as usual in the meantime, at least in the short term.

In the big picture, the pending sale of the regional sports networks is a major development for sports fans in many markets. That includes St. Louis, where FSM is the primary telecaster of the two major local pro teams — the Cardinals and Blues. It also has St. Louis University and Southern Illinois University basketball.

The Cardinals enter their landmark 15-year, billion-dollar-plus deal with Fox next season, an arrangement that also gives the team what is believed to be a 30 percent equity stake in Fox Sports Midwest. And the Blues have multiple years remaining on their Fox contract after this season.

It’s hard to tell what impact the deal would have on telecasts of individual teams, including those in St. Louis. Will whatever FSM ends up being named add more local programming? Who will run it? Who will be the announcers?

ESPN representatives would not make management officials available this week to be interviewed about the situation. But Disney Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger addressed the matter on a recent call with financial analysts.

“The plan is to take the best of both companies and put them together, people and product,” Iger said. “... It’s not going to be an ‘all of us’ and ‘none of them,’ — they’ve got a very strong talent pool ... and the ability to create a lot.”

ESPN has been losing subscribers in recent years, and laying off employees, as many viewers are moving away from cable packages to online streaming services or other programming formats.

But local sports remain a strong draw, and are more of a “must-have” for many sports fans than national networks. Locally, FSM routinely is the highest-rated channel in St. Louis when it is showing the Cardinals.

Iger said that strength was a key factor in the company’s decision to purse the regional sports outlets.

“You have to look at the (regional sports networks) as a complement to ESPN, not an overlap,” Iger told CNBC. “... There will be a sharing of product, so that we can infuse ESPN national with some more local content and infuse the local regional sports networks with more national content and the result of both will be better for the consumer than it is today.”

RAM-LESS AGAIN

For the second week in a row, the Rams won’t be on St. Louis television. That comes after the team some St. Louisans still love — and more love to hate — was shown four times in a row in the city it discarded two seasons ago.

The Rams play at Tennessee on Sunday and if they win they’ll clinch the NFC West title. That’s a feat they haven’t accomplished since 2003, when they still were based in St. Louis.

Their contest, at noon, is being shown regionally by Fox. But local affiliate KTVI has opted to pick up the Atlanta-New Orleans game then. It is being shown in 45 percent of the nation. The Rams-Titans matchup goes to 24 percent.

Meanwhile, telecasts of the local NFL teams continue to draw atrocious ratings in Los Angeles. Last weekend the Rams mauled Seattle to take control of the NFC West in their biggest victory since returning to LA. But Nielsen, which tabulates viewership, reports that just 7.2 percent of homes in the market with a TV tuned in to the telecast.

Last Saturday night LA’s newest NFL team, the Chargers, played Kansas City in a showdown of AFC West leaders. The Los Angeles rating was a miserable 3.0.

So the combined rating for the two biggest NFL games for Los Angeles teams in more than two decades was 10.2. The last time the Rams were televised in St. Louis, on Dec. 10 when they lost to the Eagles, the STL rating was 11.3.

And the worst rating the Rams drew in St. Louis in their 21 seasons in town was 10.9, and there were extenuating circumstances that night in 2013 — the Cardinals were playing in a World Series contest at the same time.

NFL ON TV

Week 16 NFL games to be televised in St. Louis:

SATURDAY

3:30 • Colts at Ravens, NFL Network

7:30 • Vikings at Packers, KSDK (5)

SUNDAY

Noon • Falcons at Saints, KTVI (2)

Noon • Dolphins at Chiefs, KMOV (4)

3:25 • Seahawks at Cowboys, KTVI (2)

No night game (Christmas Eve)

MONDAY (Christmas Day)

3:30 • Steelers at Texans, KSDK (5), NFL Network

7:30 p.m. • Raiders at Eagles, ESPN

CHRISTMAS CARDS

Fox Sports Midwest on Monday has its annual Christmas Day marathon of condensed replays of key Cards game from the previous season.

This is the seventh year it will be doing this, with games edited into 2-hour blocks.

The schedule:

1 p.m. • Cards score nine runs in eighth inning, beat Cubs (July 21).

3 p.m. • Michael Wacha pitches first complete game, vs. Mets (July 18).

5 p.m. • Tommy Pham homers twice, Cards beat Braves in 14 innings (May 7).

7 p.m. • Carlos Martinez pitches first complete game, vs. Phillies (June 10).

9 p.m. • “Rally cat” game, vs. Royals (Aug. 9).