Attorneys for Major League Baseball and Diamond Sports Group revealed in court this morning that DSG and the Marlins reached a new broadcasting arrangement for the 2025 season (link via Evan Drellich of the Athletic). The Marlins did not announce the deal, nor has anyone reported specifics on the rights fees.
The Fish were one of 12 teams whose local broadcasts were carried on Diamond’s Bally Sports networks this past season. Diamond announced today that it has agreed to a naming rights deal with the sports gambling company FanDuel. The Bally Sports networks will be rebranded as FanDuel Sports networks, though there’s otherwise little change for consumers.
Amidst its ongoing bankruptcy proceeding, Diamond announced in early October that it would abandon its contracts with every team aside from the Braves. Of the 11 clubs that were dropped, the Twins, Guardians, Rangers and Brewers announced they would look elsewhere. The other seven indicated they might renegotiate deals with Diamond at a diminished rate.
Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald writes that Diamond paid the Marlins around $50MM to carry games in the Miami area this past season. It’s not clear how much of a cut the Fish will take next year. Various teams have pointed to TV revenue issues as reasons for reducing player payroll. The Marlins don’t have much to cut at this point. They did virtually nothing last offseason, spending $5MM in free agency. They’re now amidst a complete rebuild and presumably aren’t going to spend more than a few million dollars this winter either.
The other six teams that remain in limbo are the Reds, Rays, Tigers, Angels, Cardinals and Royals. Diamond still needs to demonstrate to the bankruptcy court that it has a viable plan to move forward and avoid liquidation. Drellich notes that confirmation hearing is set to begin on November 14. Assuming the court approves the plan, Diamond will move forward with at least the Braves and Marlins for the ’25 season.
If they aren’t spending, especially with Bell, Arraez,, Anderson, and Chisholm gone, a modest cut from $50M is probably something they could handle.
Meanwhile the gap between them and the hundreds of millions LA gets becomes wider.
Oh good another wasted television station that I will have to pay a ton for watching a crappy product
Maybe if the Fish — as well as the other orphaned clubs — pivoted back to traditional TV, at least for road games — they’d find revenue and ratings start to rise.
Sitcoms, dramas, game shows, reality shows, and local news get way better primetime ratings.
Good luck to your Yankees, YBC!
Thanks! Looking good so far.
Scripted shows are all but dead and honestly there hasn’t been a decent reality show concept that hasn’t been done to death in years. I’d be all for sports returning to traditional tv as cable is literally living on borrowed time as is
Not to mention hasn’t been a TV show made in this country for years worth watching, they ALL push/have an agenda. Was a time could still get agenda (mostly) free from certain international countries, but that is now finished also, even the science and history based channels have become infected with the virus.
Explains, sort of why tv viewership is limited when it targets a minority of the population to start off with.
Sounds like you’re the one with an agenda, mate.
@CleaverGreene
No, just a different opinion than you. Hope it is not too frightening for you.
Did you forget which screen name you were using before answering, and answered with this account instead of the other one?
Look at what the Florida Panthers did locally; they very successfully told Bally to f off – Granted, you have to watch them out of market on ESPN+ but at least their feed works
Yeah, I don’t understand why the Marlins and the Heat are signing up for it again. The Marlins are supposedly looking to move forward with “sustainable success” and the Miami Heat are one of the NBA’s elite teams and top dog in Miami. Strange.
And in all honesty, I’m not sure why more of the franchises in the four major North American sports leagues (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL) don’t go to the Panthers model of creating that Panthers+ app for games and extras. These franchises make tons of money – many of them making more than the Panthers, but most choose to remain with some deals that are not team-friendly. They need to catch up to what is clearly the future.
Eventually MLB will be the Fan Duel Baseball League brought to you by MGM
Are you betting on that?
A certain former translator wants in on that action, but he wants to know if he can place bets in smokes and stamps
I’m sure he has a yen to do that.
@ reds
Do federal prisons take the yen? Asking for a friend he needs money on his books to place bets.
Right? Jesus. The level of money wh*redom MLB has hit under Manfred is unbelievable. Is there anything he wouldn’t slap on an MLB person/place/thing for enough money? MLB Network, brought to you by the Taliban? The 2025 Vladimir Putin Memorial First Year Player Draft?
Nah the mlb network will be brought to you by Carl’s Jr. and each ticket will come with a “big a$$ burger”. The taliban will get milb games
The Marlins projected payroll as of right now is $44 million. Aside from some minor league invites to training camp it’s easy to believe they won’t be spending this off-season and even if they do, it probably won’t be enough to push payroll that much over the $50 million dollar mark
Funny thing. With their SPs coming back, and their offense looking better, if they could just spend that little amount they do on bullpen help, they could make some noise for that 6th playoff spot.
Weird situation where the Marlins are worth it to Bally/Fan Duel Sports, but a team like the Padres is not.
Do that many more people watch the Marlins on TV than go to their games?
Probably has more to do with the rights fees they have to pay. A whole lot less for the Fish.
Think much of it might have had to do with the cost of broadcast rights owed to the Padres. Just lookd and it *seems* there was a 20y 1.2bn dollar contract. Split that over 20y and it’s more than the 50m Diamond just exited with the Fish and Diamond (it said) had already taken an 8.5bn bath with the various tv deals as reasons for filing for bankruptcy.
@This one @johnsilver
Good points. Thank you both.
$60 million a year by my math for the Bally deal with the Padres. That is a good amount of scratch that ain’t just gonna make itself back. Hope they figure it out.
Comcast pays 2.5B on a 25 year deal to the Philllies that started in 2014.
The Padre Bally deal was peanuts. The Dodgers get 230M a year on their TV deal.
Renaming the network the Fanduel Network just feels cheap and gross. I’m so over sports gambling being everywhere.
It is sub-optimal optics for a league whose cardinal rule is for its players to never bet on the game.
(cont’d) Although, to be fair, MLB itself didn’t do the rebrand. It’s just taking money from the company that did, and the gambling product will be plastered all over the airwaves for those teams.
MLB could have saved themselves the problems with Bally by outbidding them when the RSN were up for sale. They were penny wise but pound foolish.
MLB is getting the teams broadcast rights back for free. Manfred and the owners are pretty happy with what is happening so far and after looking at the most recent filings from MLB in the bankruptcy case, I’m not sure that they will agree to Diamond Sports plan to cut just some of the contacts. Baseball’s lawyers bit into Diamond in their response.
Clown show
Robby the robot might as well wear a red nose and big shoes.
What’s the point of signing a new contract with Bally Sports when they’ve demonstrated that any deal with them is meaningless?
@Black Ace
They won’t be able to file another bankruptcy to break this contract.
It’s a one year contract.
Panthers won the Stanley Cup and almost immediately went to Scripp Sports which is free locally on rabbit ears, and the Marlins are still wallowing in the muck with these clowns, very disheartening
If MLB TV could just offer a package for all 30 teams that allows you to watch your team instead of out-of-market games, all should be easier for mostly all parties – especially us fans.
So now MLB teams will literally have their games broadcast by online bookie sports networks? And Pete Rose died (deservedly) outside the HOF. SMH. How is it with MLB so in bed with organized gambling that only players get f*cked?