You clearly don't understand what the Cardinals have done, and why it is impossible for the Pirates do have ever done anything similar. The Cardinals have large expanses of territory with little or no competition in that they can expand their reach into. The Pirates have no such thing. The Pirates are surrounded by the Phillies, Orioles, Nationals. Indians, Reds and even the Blue Jays. The only place that there is for the Pirates to expand their market into is West Virginia. And they are already there. And even in parts of West Virginia there is competition, with Cleveland and Cincinnati in the western part of the state and Baltimore and Washington in the eastern part.
MLB considers the Pirates market to include all but the southeastern part PA, all of West Virginia, a slice of Ohio along the PA border and a stretch out toward Columbus, a small part of western Maryland, and the very western corner of New York. The Cardinals market includes all of Kansas except around Kansas City, all of Arkansas, all of Oklahoma, all of Iowa, all of Illinois except for the area in and around Chicago, the western part of Kentucky, the western part of Tennessee and the northwest portion of Mississippi. Their territory got that large because back in the day they were able to leverage the fact that their games were on one of the most powerful radio stations in the country in a way that was impossible for the Pirates because of all the Pirates relatively close MLB neighbors. Cardinals games are shown on television regularly in places approximately as far from St. Louis as Boston is to Pittsburgh. If you can't understand how that makes the Cardinals an outlier and not something that is possible for the Pirates, or any other team for that matter, to emulate then you are simply delusional.
