The Mariners will take full ownership of the ROOT Sports Northwest regional sports network on January 1, according to Ryan Divish and Adam Jude of the Seattle Times. The Mariners had already held a 71% share in ROOT Sports NW since 2013, and they’ll now assume the 29% share previously held by Warner Bros. Discovery, as the corporation is getting out of the RSN business.
This could mean some cuts at ROOT, as Mariners chairman John Stanton met with staffers on Tuesday and “could not promise all staffers that they would retain their jobs,” Divish and Jude write. More clarity will emerge on the organizational side by mid-January, Stanton told the ROOT employees, and in a statement to Divish/Jude, Stanton said “our top priority is to ensure all Mariners fans have access to watch Mariners games from their home each night.”
In addition to the M’s, ROOT is also the broadcast home of the NHL’s Seattle Kraken, as well as the NBA’s Portland Trail Blazers and (in select markets) Utah Jazz, and some college basketball games involving schools in the Pacific Northwest. As such, any decision the Mariners take about ROOT’s future involves several other teams and existing contracts, and it isn’t necessarily a guarantee that the M’s will remain with ROOT in its current form.
As Divish and Jude note, the Mariners might opt to sell their broadcasting rights to Major League Baseball itself, following the path of some teams whose TV rights were impacted by the Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy announcement last March. Even the M’s might explore this possibility in the future, however, the “most likely decision” for 2024 is that the team will continue ROOT productions as usual, and simply absorb the new costs associated with full ownership of the network.
Owning a regional sports network has traditionally been seen a positive or even a cash cow for teams in various sports, though the broadcasting landscape has changed rather drastically as more and more customers have either cut back on cable subscriptions or cut the cord entirely. Comcast Xfinity announced in October that it was planning to double the cost of a subscription to ROOT, which could have even more of an adverse impact on viewership.
With WBD out of the picture, the Mariners will now carry the full brunt of additional costs themselves, and the impact is already being seen in the team’s baseball operations decisions. Cutting payroll has been the chief focus of Seattle’s offseason to date, and president of baseball ops Jerry Dipoto has suggested that the M’s may spend beyond their $140MM payroll for 2023, but perhaps not much beyond. Seattle has about $117.24MM on the books for 2024 as per Roster Resource, giving the club some but not a ton of spending flexibility as the Mariners look to upgrade their offense. Dipoto has always been more prone to roster-building via trades than by free agency anyway, but Dipoto might need to be more creative than usual in finding deals that will help the M’s without breaking the bank.
Can’t wait for 3 scrap heap overpays at end of Jan or early Feb
Good for you Mariners! So proud!
Bnick – As long as the M’s continue to lead MLB in profit, probably ain’t gonna change.
Meanwhile,Rob Manfred is doing NOTHING regarding the Diamond Sports bankruptcy which affects those teams dependent on revenue from their tv deals. Cleveland, specifically held in limbo now until the next hearing on Jan 5th. There is no competitive balance in baseball , when a team does not know how much they have to spend for the year!!!
“Rob Manfred doing nothing”…You do realize Rob Manfred is not a bankruptcy judge, right?
There is no offseason World Series. If there was, you’re right, the Mets/Padres/Dodgers would always win. Thankfully there is only 1 World Series every year.
Signed, Braves fan
And just before Christmas!! What a classy act!!
Hey there is no bigger Mariners fan in the AL West right now. I’m definitely rooting for them on ROOT! I look at my Yankees, as the Mariners perfect trading partner if they need some offense, basically we can definitely help each other in 2024 and beyond. Let’s Go M’s!!!
In other words, Yamamoto is still undecided in his next team
The Mariner offseason salary dump will likely extend beyond the team.
Stanton must be suffering enormously. Maybe fans could start a Go Fund Me for his benefit?
It’s getting ridiculous. This ownership group’s integrity is now gone for many fans. If Stanton is running on such very thin margins…. just sell the team. Make your money and let someone else try to bring this city a winner.
I’ve got a job opening in low level management if he wants to apply. Not sure he’s qualified though.
He could be the assistant to the regional manager
“our top priority is to ensure all Mariners fans have access to watch Mariners games from their home each night.”
It sure doesn’t seem like it, as the M’s force fans to decide between two expensive premium subscription services (FUBO or Xfinity). Like many people, I cut the cord on cable several years ago. I would be happy to pay to watch ROOT sports, but I am not going to pay $50-$90 per month for channels I do not want. The Mariners need to fix this, as cable subscriptions will only decrease moving forward..
MLB needs to take over all local TV contracts and distribute the revenue equally among the teams.
“our top priority is to ensure all Mariners fans have access to watch Mariners games from their home each night.”
Is this ownerships idea of how to make us feel better about not spending money on players? If so, it does not work what so ever.
Is there anyway that this helps the Mariners spend more on free agents? I cannot see it where we sit right now but I don’t know all of the future benefits or concerns of this decision.
I would say the salary dumping nature of this offseason for the Mariners shows the concern.
Watch the games on bootleg. And get ready for a lot of blacked out games.
I am Root
Still trying to figure out the endgame of this move, Que bono? I don’t believe a word coming out of that front office
*cui bono
JFC
Might as well put Christmas bonuses and pink slips in the same envelope…
Tried to…. the “jelly of the month” club envelopes came pre-sealed.
Jelly of the month club. It’s the gift you can enjoy all year long!
This channel had/has MLB, NHL, NBA, and college sports? That is a ton of content for an RSN channel, and probably priced to cover the rights fees for all of them. Seems like the M’s could slim it down by cutting the other stuff and do just baseball. That would in principle allow lower prices targeting the baseball-only fan who doesn’t want the other stuff.
This is interesting and may be the trend with Time Warner getting out of the RSN business and Diamond/Bally bankruptcy. The RSN model was too tied into cable TV and with so many cutting the cord, broadcasters will have to get better in capturing fans through streaming. MLB Network already has a streaming platform which will likely get more robust as the RSN’s continue to collapse. Maybe why Mariners would consider selling the rights to MLB Network. I know that one of the few RSN’s that has done well is Bally Sports Detroit. Or at least they keep making their payments to the Tigers. But even the Tigers see the changing landscape and hired its own main play by play man this off season (Benetti) instead of having BSD hire him. But BSD also has a streaming option for games unlike some of the other RSN’s so it may survive a bit longer.
MLB needs to find a better way to economically stream it’s product if it wants to remain relevant and more importantly gain new fans. Most people I know have cut the cable cord which pretty much guarantees that the Gen Z base will never hook up in the future. Streaming is the future and that doesn’t include forcing customers to buy channels they don’t want.
John Stanton has just confirmed Root Sports newest partners are going to be Cartoon Network and The Comedy Channel!
Sell the team John, sell the frick’n team!
“Imagine if instead of having to subscribe to all of the different streaming services for all the content you want, it was all in one place.
And then imagine that instead of buffering and lagging and waiting to load there was a special dedicated wire that offered it all instantly in high quality.
Crazy, I know.”
“Cutting payroll has been the chief focus of Seattle’s offseason to date”.
More like ‘let’s get rid of a 200k/sub .250 hitter and bring in someone that can hit for avg and K half as much.
Can you imagine what kind of production can be produced from 100 or so AB’S where there is no K? 200k’s vs 100K’s.
Can’t wait! 100 roll-overs to the second baseman instead of a 100 Ks!!
IMO, you’re right, Hoof! All those Ks have a cumulative effect on run production. Fewer guys on base, fewer runners moved over, fewer sac flies, fewer runs driven in. Having the #2 and #3 K leaders in MLB gone (as well as a talented young guy who doesn’t control his temper and also Ks a bunch)? Golden, except that they haven’t really done anything yet to replace the departed players, and the trade return for those guys looks truly awful so far. My fingers are crossed that the M’s will bring in some players who can actually help, but this ROOT thing makes me doubtful.
I get it, but who?? FA are signing with clubs, and the players who can actually help will have all signed. The Mariners are not in on any of the remaining top FA and every one that is left is not a major upgrade of the players they have moved. It sounds good in theory, but in practice you need those productive hitters that don’t strike out, don’t have a temper, and will sign a below market contract to come to Seattle. Who are the names that you think the Mariners should sign as a FA that fit the “players that can actually help”??
There aren’t any. And there are virtually no teams trading for prospects. If you had payroll, teams are lining up to dump player salary everywhere cause of the RSN issues everywhere. So basically, M’s fans need to be prepared to see prospect overpay, for good players. Or more bargain basement 1yr signings. let’s be honest, bargain basement is the most likely. If this payroll thing is going to keep up, then prepare to trade Castillo, Gilbert, Ray, Raleigh and France next off-season for prospects. Ms are about to become the Ray’s. Those players could nab massive prospects to fuel the next CHEAP core. Mark my words, it’s more likely than you think.
Agreed. They might trade Castillo this off season.
I’d rather they trade Castillo than Gilbert, Kirby, Miller or Woo.
Really? Stanton ent and actually talked to employees at a business he owns? This organization is a joke. Should’ve moved the mariners and not the Sonics, at least they won a title.
A couple of economic comments since that is where this thread seems to have gone:
Increased revenue-sharing is anticompetitive within MLB but in this case not anti-capitalist–the economic entity is the league and the teams are franchisees operating under a franchise agreement. A McDonald’s franchisee can’t tell corporate in Chicago, “hands off, all this money is mine.” But it’s not clear that increased revenue sharing is better for the league, even if it is for certain individual teams.
Everyone who thought cord-cutting would result in cheaper a la carte service were wrong. It was a reasonable prediction, but the streaming market coalesced into structures that are little different from cable companies. Transactions have to be good for both the buyer and seller, and a la carte clearly has not worked for sellers.
Mariners fans have been getting “rooted” (Aussie slang) for some time now.
The cable model is dying fast. Almost all programming I want to watch is available on streaming for dramatically lower prices and–even more importantly–without commercials.
The one thing I would watch on cable is local baseball. Maybe cable would be worth it if I were going to watch a big variety of shows on it, but until they start broadcasting those shows without commercials that’s a big nope for me.
I’m aware of the VPN option but I am not a thief. If what I want to buy is not for sale, then there’s no deal, and I’ll just get my entertainment in other ways. But I’m not gonna steal it.
I used to have cable and was happy with the product but the pricing became ridiculous. I switched to streaming and like the reduced cost but I do get frustrated with the glitches and pixelization that happens way more often with streaming apps. As far as people at Root losing their jobs I nominate Jen Mueller. I’m sure she’s a wonderful person and I hate for anyone to lose their job but she’s just painful to listen to. The silly games and driving with Jen are a complete waste of time.
Fubo TV specializes in sports and carries the Mariners. After switching the price isn’t much different than Xfinity.
The Gen Xers that run Root Sports are about to learn when you mess with the bull you often get the horns.
I live 212 miles from my favorite team and my zip code is in the blackout zone on mlbtv.
Personally, i wish local networks would carry Baseball games like they used to. This all or nothing cable approach is slowly going down in flames (Bally Sports) and the straming packages are ridiculously overpriced. On answer would be to do away with blackout restrictions and let people pay a certain price for the team they actually want to watch
Is it known how much MLB pays to clubs for streaming rights?
Makes you wonder about the contract language of the deal between Root and Xfinity. So they have exposure to huge losses which must be unnerving. Shame more of the profits from the past few years weren’t reinvested back into the team.
I don’t understand why everyone is up in arms about the M’s. Jerry is just getting ready to enact phase II of the rebuild and we should be in a viable place to contend and spend money by 2028-2030 and ready himself and Scott another extension.
#KickTheCanDownTheRoad