In late March, the Marlins and Sinclair Broadcast Group announced a multi-year local television rights contract. The specific terms and length of the agreement weren’t disclosed at the time, but Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald now reports it’s a seven-year deal that pays just over $50MM annually. The parties’ previous agreement averaged in the neighborhood of $18MM, Jackson notes, paying the Marlins a league-low $20MM last season.
While the $50+MM average annual value represents a significant increase over the prior contract’s, it’s not an unexpected figure. Craig Mish of SportsGrid reported last month the new local rights deal paid “substantially more than double” the annual salary of its predecessor over a six-plus year term. In January 2020, Jackson reported the Marlins turned down a 2017 offer from Sinclair that would’ve paid more than $50MM annually. The Marlins had hoped to secure around $60MM per season on the new contract, Jackson reports, but the intervening COVID-19 pandemic seems to have made that goal unattainable.
It isn’t clear when or to what extent the new TV deal will affect the Marlins’ payroll. Importantly, there is also no indication of the specific payment breakdown. TV rights deals are often backloaded. It wouldn’t be surprising if that’s the case here, particularly with the pandemic as a backdrop in negotiations. The Marlins have scaled back player payroll quite a bit in recent years, opening 2021 with an estimated $56.9MM outlay that ranks 28th leaguewide, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts.
“It isn’t clear when or to what extent the new TV deal will affect the Marlins’ payroll.”
–
This is the demagogic MBTR comment section. So allow me to join in and write: “The evil, nasty, awful, greedy, oppressive billionaire owner will put the money in his pocket”.
Lol, no.
He’s going to need the money after losing all that cash by investing in Bear Stearns.
Billionaires ?! If the owners were billionaires they would not have traded away the most productive outfield in the history of Major League Baseball for next to no value in returns. Jeter is a broke joke and has no business in owning a team – they just couldn’t find anyone reputable to buy it
How many wins did that “most productive outfield in the history of Major League Baseball” have bot? It doesn’t matter how good those guys were, they didn’t win crap. And the team under Loria was well known to be hemorrhaging money. Sorry if you have something against Jeter.
Jeter is the minority owner. The majority owner is a billionaire.
Bruce Sherman, the majority owner, is not a billionaire either.
Jeter is to the Marlins what Magic Johnson was to the Dodgers; a public face for the fans and the media. Trading away Stanton in hindsight ended up being for the best. Hasn’t been healthy in years and will only continue to break down. Yelich and Ozuna could have realistically gone either way staying with the Marlins.
Samuel
“The evil, nasty, awful, greedy, oppressive billionaire owner will put the money in his pocket”.
==============================================================
That’s the part I look forward to. “so-and-so is a billionaire, so why doesn’t he spend all his money buying free agents, so I can root for a better team, even though I never go to any games.”.
Why, oh why, is everything not free?
Yeah take your “common sense” bootlicking elsewhere; or better yet, apply it to someone who hasn’t lobbied, etc. to win everything they could ever want. Billionaires in this society literally run everything and never face any financial risks. It’s not unfair for fans to ask for a competitive product.
kylegocougs
It’s not unfair for fans to ask for a competitive product.
================================================================
I would agree, but only if the fans supported the product. In 2019, the Marlins attendance was 811k. St. Louis, for example, had 3.4M. The difference of 2.4M, multiplied by a lowly $50 each in spending, is $120M.
If the Marlins fans do not go to Marlins games, then the Marlins cannot be competitive.
The Clippers beg to differ
Nope.
– Fred Wilpon
Sinclair doesn’t seem to mind…
Except the Marlins get some of STL ticket revenue from mlb revenue sharing
Why is anyone bashing this Marlins ownership about the money situation? This team is headed in the right direction with their rebuild. We even got a bonus season last year with a playoff appearance that allowed to give our young players experience in those for when we are fully ready to contend.
As for how billionaires spend, I don’t think we’ll ever have Marlins owners like BS artists John Henry and then Jeffrey Loria. Let’s see…
John Henry, after being rejected by the NHL because they knew a con-artist when they heard one, purchased the Marlins. Then after he cried pauper for so many years as to why he couldn’t spend or build his own stadium, he makes that underhanded deal with Bud Selig and Loria that lands him in Boston, spending more money than it would have cost him to own the Marlins and his own stadium at that time. And in all of this, he combined with his two buddies to block out Gustavo Cisneros who wanted to purchase the Marlins and build his own stadium to make them his sports feature locally and in his Latin television empire. They also blocked out Mark Cuban who wanted to bid on any MLB team.
Then we have Loria. After destroying baseball in Montreal, he comes to Miami to try to destroy baseball here by attempting to continue Henry’s work of turning the Marlins into a cash cow like he did with the Expos until that well ran dry. Then, when he knows he’s going to sell the team, he signs Stanton to a contract that everyone knew was a disaster – but of course he backloads it. He also signs other players with backloaded contracts (Chen, Prado, etc.) all to spruce up the Marlins sales value for when he plan to sell it – the year before those backloaded contracts would kick in. And among all of Loria’s antics, nothing can be as laughable as when, after he claimed he was losing money with the Marlins and couldn’t afford a payroll and collecting his revenue sharing check from MLB, he donates $25 million to Yale to make sure that the students there have a “safe place to study” because apparently (tongue in cheek) Yale University is a dangerous campus with all of those Malibu’s Most Wanted types running wild.
So, let me get this right. After these two shady, circus clowns, you all are trying to bash this ownership group?
I actually learned a lot from this post. Thank you.
@MarlinsFanBase it wasn’t bashing Marlins ownership as much as it was bashing Jeter. It was nothing more than trolling.
The Marlins backloaded contracts, then offloaded them to richer teams after he took advantage of their younger, cheaper years. You can hate Loria all you want, but that was a really insightful move.
You complain about demogogues yet sound like a cartoonish ideologue.
This is huge news for the Marlins. More television reach means more fans. More fans mean more tickets. More tickets means more jersey sales, etc. It is a lot more than a $30mm increase a year in budget. This could have a $60-80mm affect in a few years.
You realize they are talking about the Marlins right? When have they had more fans?
Miami fans show up if the teams is competitive. Regardless of the sport. It is what it is. Marlins put a competitive team on the field they will have fans just like they did during their championship years.
There’s no excuse now for the current regime not to put a competitive and contending team year in year out
@MJM117: “Miami fans show up if the teams is competitive. Regardless of the sport.”
This is not true at all. In 2003, when the Marlins won the World Series, they averaged around 16,000 fans a game, which was 3rd worst on the entire league, ahead of only the Devil Rays and the Expos. The next season they did a little better at 21,500 a game, but this was still terrible and they were 5th worst in attendance.
They have only averaged more than 30k fans twice, their first and second seasons (1993/1994). Miami does not care about the Marlins regardless of how good or bad they are.
In 2003 the team was a few years old and didn’t have a real fan base yet. Are you comparing an incredibly new team to ones that have 100+ years of generational fans?
You can also point to 1997 championship year…what happened a year later? did the team stay intact? Nope they were dismantled to the bone. Same happened after the 2003 championship.
Miami will support a competitive Team. They won’t if they’re competitive once every decade.
The ownership in 1997 spent big money to sign players and put a winning team on the field.
They wanted to see right off the bat if it would result in ticket sales, TV ratings, etc.
It didn’t, despite a championship team and that owner essentially bailed after that.
Nobody in south Florida cares about the Marlins, and to be honest, they don’t support much of anything except maybe the Heat if they are winning.
Even the Dolphins fail to sell out games and the building is filled with fans of their opponents… a common scene in south Florida sports.
It is a dismal market, for many different reasons, and will likely never change.
you dont know what you talking about..
tickets. sale will not go up because of this.
jeter is killing off marlins main fan base . ask marlins man.
plus plus high marlins had was 1996 to 1999 in top 9th to 11th in tv rating and sale of everything… this not the florida marlins of than . this miami / jeter/ yankee fan you sound like
marlins never had problem with getting tv rating it keeping them . .
Huh?
My head hurts from trying to understand what you are saying.
Not to be rude but was this even English.
me dont know what you talking about..
@rocko
It’s still too early to declare a winner for the “maroon of the day” but you’re a real contender.
Team itself could have done better than those 2 losers they have in the broadcast (tv) booth fulltime. It was a joy watching them when both Rich Walz and Tommy Hutton called games for them, even after they (wrongly) got rid of Hutton, Walz was good, but this new ownership group brought in losers, then went and alienated past marlin heroes without a care, while bringing in yankee chums of jeter’s from NY into the organization?
Many disliked Loria, but jeter is making this team disliked by those who matter.. Floridians who are needed to support them and not faraway yankee fans who love everything jeter ever did regardless. Let him run the yankees into the ground instead.
Hutton was a very good color commentator in Toronto. Maybe he said Jeter didn’t have to take seven steps before jumping into the stands after a catch, and Jeter took it personally.
@johnsilver
FYI – Tommy Hutton has been brought back about a year or year and a half ago.
And I don’t know what Floridians you’ve been talking to, but nearly all of us Marlins fans/Floridians/South Floridians that matter are happy with what is happening with the team and what Jeter’s group is doing. His team had missteps at the beginning, but things are being corrected.
As for Conine, they acquired his son in a trade last year. There is an effort to mend things there.
I think you may be speaking from some outdated E!SPN material.
Good to know MarlinsFan.
@MarlinsFanBase
I’m a native Floridian.. Like an old man and have followed the Fish for years to some extent. Live much closer to the Rays area of control, but was always more of a marlins fan as far as Florida teams go and was disgusted when they (Loria then) let Hutton go, then the Jeter group let Walz go after that.
I’ve of course watched many, many games over they years, but the new team on MLBtv does not include Hutton doing color that I have seen for several seasons. I’d love it if he would come back, as miss his voice and of course.. The infamous 10 run reels they would run.
We don’t have cable any longer so do not see them that way, just on mlbtv. The ‘Niner was a key part of the pre game briefings and sports talk, but was ran out last I saw by the new group.
Unless I’m missing something, the TV reach isn’t any larger. They currently are already being televised by Sinclair Broadcasting on Bally Sports Florida and that will continue, this will just pay them more. The larger problem is over the past year or two Sinclair Broadcasting’s RSNs have been dropped by multiple cable and streaming services and have even fewer opportunities for people to watch the teams now.
For the Marlins org this is a good thing. However, for their fans that watch them on TV it isn’t an improvement.
Can’t wait for rockofloveusa’s articulate retor.t..
And in other news, the Nationals are still screwed by MASN, who MLB gave the O’s controlling interest in.
If you recall, the Orioles owned the broadcast rights to DC prior to relocating the Expos . The Orioles weren’t keen on having the Expos move to DC and thus there exists the current condition of MASN being in control of the Orioles. Without that condition, the Expos weren’t going to move to DC.
So does this mean that ALL Marlins games will no longer be on MLBTV? This suspiciously sounds like the same kind of deal the Twins and Brewers did with Bally’s. And you can’t get a Twins game on MLBTV.
cough cough VPN cough cough
Only avail if you pay for cable tv unfortunately
you also have to pay for the sports package. I declined to do this bought Xfinity extra-inning which is better value in my opinion.
you forget braves and it save Bally’s money when braves vs miarlins.
Sinclair has done the same thing across the country. Two years ago in Tampa you could have watched the Rays on Hulu, YouTube TV, FuboTV, Sling, Dish, Frontier FiOS, Spectrum and Direct TV. Now it’s only Spectrum or Direct TV. A similar situation has occurred in the majority of baseball markets. It’s bad for MLB to have such limited opportunities for their fans to watch and not the way to increase interest in the sport.
ow reports it’s a seven-year deal that pays just over $50MM annually.
Will the Marlins pay back Dade County any sooner now with scoring this big deal?
Of course not. And I believe that has already been settled way after Sherman/Jeter group purchased the team.
no jeter will not. you forget jeter and current owners move team address out of united state to keep paying any for awhile.
The Miami Marlins of Nigeria??? What in holy hell are you babbling about?
This deal on top of the the annual funds they’ll be receiving from naming right del give this current regime ample ammunition to put a contending product on the field year in year out. No excuses now.
Fish have essentially zero long term funds tied up to anyone and should be huge players this off-season to bring in more hitting talent and supplement the pitching talent that big league club and farm system have been compiling since ‘18.
As day 1 fan, excited and cautiously optimistic for the future of the Marlins franchise.
They also just signed a deal with Bacardi for a position within the stadium. I forget what was the total value per year.
They must have needed cash. Terrible to negotiate and not going to the park should be a boon to broadcasters,
They’re going to be receiving more than double with their previous deal.
Could they have gotten more if there weren’t a pandemic? More than likely.
The alternative(holding out for more money and no Tv for Marlins fan) was simply not a realistic option.
Get those contracts signed while you can, Manfred is doing all he can to make the sport unwatchable.
All I care about is getting rid of local blackouts on mlb.tv…. You want more fans watching on tv, stop making it annoying to watch local teams.
Exactly. MLB needs to change its local model or it’ll keep losing fans. Got to be near the end of the era for these cable deals. They’ve been using live sports as their last desperate hope to keep any subscribers. But instead people just find things to watch instead of baseball.
I personally think that eventually MLB will expand into selling apps and charging for fans to watch their own teams, without the blackouts. We see it with other companies, mainly the broadcasting companies like NBC, Disney, Discover, etc. It makes too much financial sense for MLB to not get into that game as an expansion of MLB Network and MLB TV. Companies like Xfinity charge a sizable amount when most of us don’t watch 90% of their channels that are forced in as part of the package to watch our local teams. Sling, Hulu, Yahoo became popular when they were cheaper options to watch local teams, but they are now out of the game because of greed. If MLB offered an option to watch our local teams in an app for a decent price (such as Marlins TV, Yankees TV, etc.) all of us would be all over it, I doubt they won’t get into that game at some point as people drop their cable coverage due to the rising prices, inability for the average Joe to afford going to 162 or 81 or even 20 games per year, and the building demand to watch our local teams. It makes good business sense and works for everyone. It’s actually missing revenue for them right now.
If not MLB, I’m surprised that Bally’s or NBC or any of the other sports vendors aren’t offering the option that is separate from the cable companies. Again, missed opportunity for more revenue.
Some team is going to eventually say screw the cable outlets and go full streaming. Still too much money to be made off local tv deals, but for-pay streaming is becoming more of a necessity as more cords get cut.
Bingo! Look what I wrote above while you were writing this.
I don’t understand the Sinclair business model. They are allowing their contracts with cable, satellite, and streaming providers to fall one by one, yet they continue to pay these huge rights fees for content. How does this work?
I continue to pay the huge monthly bill to my local cable company, because they are one of the very few ways for me to continue to watch my Rangers. When will these sports teams and leagues start offering a direct to consumer option? I believe that is the future.
Perhaps some good discussion on nats keeping lucroy and general roster to be had but the comments are closed. Seems like roster move articles could be open?
MLBTR is probably still working to put its new comment policy into place.
Thinking the Nats may keep Lucroy either until Bell is ready or they need the spot for a pitcher. Garcia probably gets optioned when Harrison is ready, and Hernandez for Schwarber.
More money to not reinvest in this AAAA organization.
I wonder what the Marlins did to you….it must’ve been terrible.
Maybe they’ll loan Bob Nutting a $20?
I seriously wonder if 50M annually is a good investment for TV rights? That’s around $300,000ish per game. I use MLB.TV, and I seriously question the value of TV rights long term.
Of the people actually watching the game, how many actually watch the whole thing, and how many use DVR and skip the commercials?
Good for them.
Hope puts them $1B.+ again
great piece on who’s paying $50M+ a year, for 7 years. It
included equity, which’s the tough part to discern.
Paywall, but first 3 free;
I really implore to read this;
bizjournals.com/losangeles/news/2021/04/06/sinclai…