Major League Baseball announced that it will take over the distribution of local broadcasts for the Twins, Guardians and Brewers in 2025. All three of those clubs previously had deals with Diamond Sports Group, which owns the Bally Sports Networks. But those deals all expired after 2024 and it was reported this week that Diamond is planning to make cutbacks to the number of teams on its slate of baseball broadcasts.
MLB will now be handling the broadcasts of at least six clubs, as it was already distributing for the Padres, Diamondbacks and Rockies. Fans will be able to sign up for direct-to-consumer streaming packages without blackouts, except for games that are being broadcasted nationally. The Rangers also saw their Diamond deal expire in 2024 but seem to be in a different situation for now. MLB announced that Texas wouldn’t be continuing with Diamond but are exploring local options for 2025.
The Regional Sports Network model has been decaying for many years and this news is latest part of the crumbling. For years, broadcasters would pay clubs for the right to have exclusive local broadcasting rights, which would often lead to frustration among fans. Baseball games were harder to access and some fans found themselves in the blackout areas of multiple different teams. However, these deals were a significant source of annual revenue for teams.
But as consumers cut cords and move away from buying cable packages, the model has been less effective and several deals have already fallen apart. Diamond has been going through the bankruptcy process since early in 2023. As mentioned, the Padres, Diamondbacks and Rockies didn’t have a local broadcasting deal for 2024. The Padres and Diamondbacks had previously been with Diamond while the Rockies were with AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain. Fans in those markets were able to pay MLB directly to watch the team in 2024, with no blackouts, for $19.99 per month or $99.99 for the year. Dan Hayes of The Athletic relays on X that the Twins will be charging a similar price next year.
While that was a nice development for many fans, it wasn’t good for the teams. By all accounts, the revenue generated from this model is lower than what the clubs were previously receiving from the cable model, as the latter led to a passive stream of revenue from fans who signed up for cable packages but didn’t watch much or any baseball. The direct-to-consumer model cuts out the middleman but is dependent on active fan interest.
The MLB announcement today says that the “reach” of the Guardians via RSN was 1.45 million homes, with the Twins at 1.08 million. The league relays that between four and five million homes will now have access to their local clubs via these streaming options, but not all of them will sign up and it’s unclear what sort of rates are to be expected. Twins president Dave St. Peter expects the club to receive less broadcast revenue in 2025, per Aaron Gleeman of the Athletic on X, though he added that he expects greater revenue in the future.
In short, the move is good for fans in terms of simply watching the games. But since it’s bad for the teams on the business side, it could have spillover effects into roster construction. Last offseason, declining broadcast revenue seemed to have significant ripple effects in terms of transactions. The Padres trading Juan Soto to the Yankees, for instance, seemed to be motivated by the Friars needing to make budget cuts. Teams like the Rangers, Twins and others either cut their payrolls or didn’t raise them as much as expected, which led to certain free agents having fewer suitors than anticipated and a weak market for free agents in general.
Whether this will have an immediate impact on the decisions of the Twins, Guardians and Brewers will remain to be seen. The Twins already cut their payroll significantly a year ago in the wake of uncertainty with Diamond. There was seemingly some chance of the deal collapsing before the Twins re-signed for another year but with reduced fees. Per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, the payroll went from $154MM in 2023 to $127MM in 2024. Per recent reporting, the club isn’t planning further payroll cuts but it doesn’t appear as though an increase is coming either. Per Gleeman on X, St. Peter doesn’t think this news impacts the payroll relative to those recent reports as the club already knew this was coming.
The Rangers appear to be exploring a different path. Last month, it was reported by Tom Friend of the Sports Business Journal that the club is looking into developing their own direct-to-consumer streaming service, independent of MLB. Presumably, the benefit to handling it themselves would mean they reap more direct revenue, but they would also spend more on the day-to-day costs of running the operation. If they eventually find this path too challenging, it seems fair to assume that letting MLB take over would be a fallback option.
Uncertainty around the broadcast situation seemed to impact the Rangers last year. Though they won the 2023 World Series, they followed that up with a relatively modest offseason, not signing any deals larger than the two years and $22MM they gave to Tyler Mahle. How their current plan will play out perhaps has even less certainty than the other three clubs, so it will be an interesting situation to watch.
There will be other long-term questions to be answered in time. Commissioner Rob Manfred intends to market a streaming package consisting of multiple teams at some point in the future, perhaps as soon as 2025. MLB.TV has existed for years but with consumers affected by local blackout rules. The idea going forward would be to essentially make a blackout-free version of MLB.TV. There would be complications in such a plan, as clubs like the Yankees, Dodgers, Cubs and others handle their own games via broadcasters that are at least partially owned by the team. Given their relatively stable footing, they would have less interest in joining such a plan with the other clubs.
As for Diamond, they had deals with 12 clubs in 2024. It was recently revealed that they are only fully committed to one for 2025, which is Atlanta. As part of that reporting last week, Diamond was apparently willing to renegotiate with other clubs but wanted to pay reduced fees. It seems that won’t happen with the four clubs mentioned in today’s announcement, so the Diamond slate will be down to a maximum of eight clubs in 2025 but perhaps that will go even lower of some others decide to make a deal like this with MLB instead.
Does that mean we can still only see out of market games?
@shadow: I know it’s oh so tough to read through an entire paragraph but try giving it another shot
@spliffTONE
Will Trevor Bauer be pitching for one of those teams that I can watch direct to consumer from?
Yes, I’m sure the Guardians are going to add him back. Or maybe Tito’s first big move is to lure him back to Cincy so Trev can launch one into the Ohio River first time being pulled.
Only if they are broadcasting the Mexican League.
Sorry humor is lost on some people, especially when the first version of the article had limited content. But thanks for trying.
“Fans will be able to sign up for direct-to-consumer streaming packages without blackouts.”
From the above article. Dependent on other factors (price, quality of the broadcast, announcing crews, etc) but that seems like a really good deal for fans. One of the worst things about MLB.TV is the blackouts for local games; no they’re gone for fans of these teams.
And sadly, the Braves will still be held hostage.
Why don’t MLB take them all over and be done with it? In fact, why didn’t they do that when this fiasco all started?
Incompetence and bad business.
bigben
Incompetence and bad business.
===================
Anything specific, or did you just want to complain. Some teams were under contract for one more year. Some teams want their own contracts.
I just like to get on my high horse.
Oh wait…that’s you.
Maybe go find a nice story in the news and complain about that.
And contracts that exist have to be honored. Its a legal thing. Have your mom explain it.
If you want a specific citation, the book Moneyball claims that the MLB has an unusual number of idiot ex-players and nepotism hires in positions of power when compared to organizations like the NFL and NBA, which have more experienced executives and data scientist types.
Some owners might be adamant about pursuing their own local or regional profit-generating opportunities…
A good number of teams make more from their own networks than the MLB sub would generate. And there are a couple others (eg Toronto) where the ownership and broadcast organizations are the same, or deeply commingled. So while this might be great for some it’s too simple to force every team into the same arrangement without some serious compensatory shenanigans to even things up.
Well, actually it is not “evened up” which is a big problem in MLB among all the teams, the majority of which do not have that massive local TV income.
Crise- You could break it down into bone simple terms and it would be beyond reason for many here, like just why would Walmart corp share with, say Publix corp their direct competitor? They wouldn’t, it’s absolute insanity suggesting otherwise, yet a large amount of posters here expect the teams with large media franchises in place to do just that.
Have posted numerous times how ludicrous that is, yet every time some mention of TV deals comes up? Many of those same yoyo’s do the same thing.
I’ll make it very simple this time.. This is the US, not China and it doesn’t work that way.
Yet.
@Very Barry
Ultimately, the score doesn’t change if you’re watching it or not. The next day’s score of 5-4 win or loss doesn’t change if you watch it or not.
The RSN operators probably had better lawyers.
Because teams that were not dumb enough to sign up with a fly by night operation like Diamond have deals that are strong or owners who were willing to spend money to form their own regional network
There are several team that own their own networks where this is not a problem:
Astros (Space City Home Network)
Blue Jays (Sportsnet)
Cubs (Marquee)
Dodgers (Spectrum SportsNet LA)
Giants (NBC Sports Bay Area)
Mariners (ROOT Sports Northwest)
National* (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network)
Orioles* (Mid-Atlantic Sports Network)
Pirates (SportsNet Pittsburgh)
Reds (co-own Diamond Sports)
Red Sox (New England Sports Network)
Yankees (YES Network)
A third of the teams in Baseball have ownership/co-ownership of their networks. There is no reason to forgo that just to let MLB take money from their tv deals
The Nationals and Orioles are definitely a problem. I live 5 hours from them in NC and they get blacked out for me. I have zero options to watch them unless they are on a National broadcast.
MASN is a joke, and always has been. Watch it because we have to during the season-don’t turn it on even once during the off-season.
@inside out
Stop calling the Sinclair Broadcasting Co a fly by night operation. They are one of the largest in the country and Diamond Sports Group (formerly Fox Sports) was purchased from Disney for $10 BILLION. Fly by nights don’t have that type of purchase power. Also, most teams signed on when it was Fox Sports. This is my second time correcting you, and I see you have now muted me for it. However, everyone else will still see your “alternative facts” are wrong.
Clarifying the RSNs that Rsox listed ..
CHSN (which launched last week): joint venture of Chicago Blackhawks, Chicago Bulls, and Chicago White Sox
Marquee: joint venture of Chicago Cubs and Sinclair
NBC Sports RSNs (A’s, Giants, Phillies): owned by Comcast
NESN: co-owned with Boston Bruins
SN Pitt: co-owned with Pittsburgh Penguins
SNY (Mets): co-owned with Charter Communcations and Comcast
Space City Home: joint venture with Houston Rockets
Spectrum Sports: owned by Charter Communications
Sportsnet (Canada): unit of Rogers Communications
YES: co-owned with Amazon and Sinclair
One clarification – NBC Sports Philadelphia since the last rights negotiation is owned 75% by Comcast and 25% by the Phillies.
NESN, MASN,YES, SNY.
You’re missing that ESPN (or RSN’s) also get all the ad revenue on their channel. That money gets shifted to MLB/ Teams under the streaming model.
You also seem to be missing the point that the biggest RSN provider in MLB just quite literally went out of business trying to pay MLB out of one hand and cover that by collecting cable and ad revenue in the other. That model seems pretty dead.
Services like Amazon, Apple TV etc. are overpaying now just to build subscriber numbers, they are losing money on all these major sports deals. That will not last forever.
Major sports leagues providing ALL their content on their own app is the future, I don’t care what anyone says. They haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what can be done. When you own the content you own the biggest hammer in the room. Why would you continue to share $$$ with cable companies, streaming services or RSN’s?
You’re still missing the point, which is that under the RSN way, you had let’s say 100,000 fans watching a game. The Cable TV operator (Comcast, Spectrum, etc.) had, let’s say, 2,000,000 customers in a team’s media area.
Just the carriage fee is probably around $20MM. If only 100,000 fans sign up, that number drops to $1MM. Making up $19MM with ad revenue is a tall order. And the RSN ran other programming that had ads to fill in time
In your example the 100,000 fans signed up are only paying $10 though.
Apply a realistic cost like $129 for a season and the 100,000 subscribers are worth $12.9m
Plus MLB can start to turn around the ridiculous blackouts.
Cable subscribers are falling fast and blackouts don’t grow the game. MLB needs to see the long game here and take the revenue hit now in order to yield more $$$ later. The league owned apps could charge more for playoffs, super bowl, world series etc. The possibilities are there.
Bro you know that ESPN is not an RSN right? So when you keep talking about 2,000,000 subscribers in a geographical area the $9.25 ESPN gets is totally irrelevant.
Also, the carrier fee in full to ESPN doesn’t matter anyway, it’s not like they are taking that whole amount and just handing it over to MLB. They have other leagues and their own programming to pay out of that.
In 2017 there were 96 million cable subscribers. In 2024 there are 68 million. The biggest RSN network for MLB spent the last two years telling you the model doesn’t work, and they can’t pay the teams. What more do you need to see?
Same reason for a lot of problems in the game:
A handful of big market teams are making gobs of money.
Add in the fact the Dodgers, Yankees, Red Sux, and Cubs have long term contracts for TV rights and it gets even more complicated.
NFL, NBA, and NHL all figured out ways to share TV revenue and enhance competitive balance. MLB is 30 individual fiefdoms.
The NBA and NHL combined play the same amount of games as MLB and neither has every team practically playing on a daily basis. It does get more complicated for a sport that most teams play 6 or 7 games per week rather than 2 or 3
Because the Yankees are not turning the YES Network over to MLB!
MLB has attempted to take over the broadcasts but they can’t just do it willy nilly because of the way the contracts with cable are written up. MLB attempted to by the RSN’s back when FOX put them up for sale. Rob Manfred is an idiot but even he realizes that MLB needs to end blackouts once and for all but it’s all a legal battle because of contracts and such. It’s why MLB has been opposing Diamond in bankruptcy court. MLB is trying to make the games easier for the fans to watch. It’s the only good thing Manfred has been trying to do.
The blackout rules hinge on local ad revenues, which are a major revenue stream for the regional networks. MLB.TV removes ads from their feed, so sponsors don’t get to see their market-specific promotions where they do business — and these sponsors *don’t* want to subsidize MLB’s profits in their home market.
Give me a bleacher seat and a radio, that’s all a fan needs!
Safe to say MLB.tv will raise subscription cost in ’25. Will it be across the board for all subscribers or higher tiered-pricing for only subscribers which aren’t subjected local blackouts?
Doesn’t matter to me YBC. I quit subscribing when it took 37 different subs to watch the Yankees. I also live in the MASN area and that’s another 15 or so games I can’t watch.
Same boat I’m in. I have mlb.tv subscription but I get blackouts for White Sox and Cubs games. White Sox are easy enough to circumvent, Hulu carries NBCSports Chicago and will carry their new network, but the Cubs are a different story. Their Marquee network requires an additional 20 bucks a month to watch them. Nope, not paying more.
NBC shut down its Chicago RSN as of 9/30. White Sox are migrating to CHSN, which is leasing time on a Chicago independent station with broadcast syndication out of market.
Yup, thankfully I am able to watch CHSN. Cubs are the ones I’m not paying extra for.
Probably depends on how fast they’re losing viewers. The healthy viewership model is tiers with varying levels of access, the clearly dying “strip it for parts” model is to increasingly gouge the remaining customers as much as possible.
“Aren’t subjected to local blackouts”…Blackouts have been on this earth longer than I have and they’re most likely not going anywhere.
Especially with MLB having a near blanket, court created immunity from antitrust concerns. I wouldn’t even bother getting my hopes up that local blackouts are going anywhere if I were you.
The blackouts happened because MLB itself (via mlb.tv) did not own the rights to the local broadcasts. If MLB is broadcasting the games themselves, it wouldn’t serve any purpose to black out their own broadcasts.
Exactly. This is the way it has worked in San Diego for the last two seasons. Having an MLB.TV subscription is all you need.
I will continue to not pay extra to watch the Cubs on Marquee Network.
The blackout areas are way too big. The Orioles and Nationals aren’t going to be picked up on a NC provider and they are blacked out. It’s ridiculous.
The revenue goes away if young people don’t become fans. Not being able to watch them on tv and they pick up other hobbies and never become fans.
O’s and Nats not on in North Carolina? Blame MASN, which was dropped by Spectrum company-wide at the start of the 2023 season. MASN wasn’t willing to accommodate Spectrum’s contract terms.
Bingo.
I’m a huge boxing fan. As a kid I watched fights on network TV, ESPN, and USA. So I became a fan.
Now fights are on apps that stream fights and PPV. Promoters are making short term money but failing to create new fans.
There’s a lot of similarity to the way boxing has multiple rival promoters and MLB has owners who look after themselves rather than the sport.
Hopefully, the new Orioles owner will fix MASN.
I hope the Reds are soon added to this list because I live in the Reds blackout market and I am unable to watch the Rockies broadcasters anytime they play the Reds. And I cannot stand the Reds broadcast team. Barry Larkin was a great player, but he should not be allowed to speak in public, let alone on TV.
Wow forcing fans to buy their subscription instead of keeping it on cable that everyone is already paying is rich. MLB is fine enough (if you can weather through all the fakeness and impossibly rose-tinting of the MLB’s organization) because we have local channels that speaks more directly to each fan base.
I feel bad for those fans, I hope they can figure out local deals soon otherwise they’ll end up paying more to watch what they should’ve already paid for.
Did you miss the part where these teams don’t have a broadcast deal in place? Pretty hard to air a game on cable when you don’t have a network and a broadcast team to air it.
Given the percentage of MLB fans who are old and tech-illiterate and refuse to turn on a computer (let alone subscribe to a streaming service), I’d like to think MLB would offer the games on actual TV channels. They could take over the Bally Sports stations, sell the game broadcasts to local over-the-air stations, or use their own station (MLB Network) with split regional coverage like the NFL does with CBS and FOX.
@layventsky. You are right. That is the way every other sport does it except MLB. Of course they share all of those regional coverage revenues equally too.
An issue the mlb and those teams should’ve immediately worked out. This is band-aid for mismanagement. As it isn’t the best solution, the trade-offs hurt consumers. Big surprise, eh?
The percentage of people with cable is dropping rapidly. The broadcasters were losing money so they declared bankruptcy and dropped the MLB teams. This was not something MLB decided to do.
Do you have internet at your house? yeah of course your not some luddite in the woods, isolated, then you have cable.
You really don’t know how this works, do you? I have fiber internet in a rural area completely independent of any cable company. Fewer and fewer people using cable companies for internet are using their TV services. That is what started this chain of events.
For reference in 2017 there were 96 million cable subscribers.
In 2024 there are 68 million.
Losing RSN’s and getting off the cable teet now is a godsend. It’s a sinking ship.
They will also sign local cable deals. So you can buy the team package or if you have cable you will likely still be able to view games on cable. It’s just not an exclusive deal.
Yeah, imagine that. MLB controlling it’s own content so that it’s available on the app first and if the cable company wants to buy it too they can, MLB gets all the say, all the $$$ and doesn’t have to run its schedule or changes by a TV network or cable provider. This is the way
A team cutting payroll doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t be able to win and make the playoffs see tigers royals brewers Indians. A stupid front office see blue jays cardinals cubs angels spend and did not make playoffs
Watch this as an excuse for owners to lower payroll
Jerry Reinsdorf has entered the chat. Not that he should spend this offseason, but knowing him, when it’s time to actually sign a free agent, he’ll use this as an excuse.
Not an excuse. A valid reason. Business 101: payroll is a percentage of income. Income goes down. Payroll goes down. Income goes up. Payroll goes up. Alternative is called bankruptcy.
Payroll certainly goes down with income but not always up with income
$59/month during season for say 144 games with no blackouts anywhere. I am in. Leaves 18 national games that we will likely be able to buy directly from Amazon (or whomever) or get it free from some package we already have.
Seems reasonable to me.
That’s double what I paid during the 2024 season for MLB.TV!
I paid a little over $100 bucks for the MLB package through the MLB app for the whole season.
“The direct-to-consumer model cuts out the middleman but is dependent on active fan interest”
I’m certain some owners are furious over this
Guess I won’t be watching next season. I ain’t paying $20 a month on top of the cable bill. Back to T.I.N. and Dan Gladden for me.
As an Iowa twins fan this is great news for me. Never been able to watch games.
Local radio and work in my workshop woks for me. One rule is no matter what you’re doing you have to turn off Kars4Kids!
If this happens I will cut cable. The only reason I currently have it is to watch sports. If between a no blackout MLB package, DAZN, and ESPN+ I can get enough sports that’s all I need.
The Braves should go to court to try to get out of any deal for ’25 with Diamond Sports Group, Bally..whatever! For them to only want to keep the Braves contract, tells me that must be the only team that was profitable for them! The Braves do have a good following and should do well with any broadcast network. I just wish they would get away from Diamond (Bally) so fans could get a streaming deal with MLB. Besides, if Diamond couldn’t pay their teams or other bills in ’24 why believe they will be able to in ’25?
The Marlins, for a small fee, will have actors re-enact the games streaming them live with a ten minute delay. In between innings they will have drag queen shows and fishing commercials depending on what area you live in. The Miami Philharmonic will provide music as the team cannot afford announcers.