The Reds announced this morning that they’ve reached agreement with Main Street Sports to handle their in-market local broadcasts for 2025 (link via Mark Sheldon of MLB.com). Main Street Sports is the new name for the broadcast company formerly known as Diamond Sports Group. The corporation rebranded after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in November.
Cincinnati games will continue on the FanDuel Sports Network, which had previously operated as Bally Sports Ohio. Despite the name changes, it’s essentially the same setup as in previous seasons. The main change for consumers is that fans can now stream games on the FanDuel Sports Network app in addition to viewing them on television.
This represents a change of plans for the Reds. Major League Baseball had announced in November that it would step in to handle Reds broadcasts in the Cincinnati area. That came after the broadcast corporation — then operating as Diamond — abandoned its previous contract with the team.
At the time, it didn’t seem the Reds were keen on negotiating a new deal that came with a revenue cut. They’ve reversed course. “Representatives of the former Diamond Sports and myself and Phil [Castellini, the team’s president] stayed in touch periodically since we made the decision to go to [MLB],” the team’s chief operating officer Doug Healy said in a statement. “Recently, as in the last few weeks, they approached us about re-engaging and discussing our 2025 broadcast rights.”
The Reds are the second team to revert to the FanDuel Sports Networks after previously planning to turn broadcasts to MLB. The Brewers did the same a couple weeks ago. In both cases, the team only agreed to a one-year deal. MLB has expressed skepticism about the broadcast corporation’s long-term viability despite its emergence from bankruptcy.
Unsurprisingly, the Reds did not reveal how much they’ll be paid on this contract. It’s almost certainly less than what they’d received under their previous TV deal, which reportedly paid around $60MM annually. However, Healy indicated that the new contract could have a slight impact on the organization’s player payroll.
“The deal with FanDuel does enhance our economics slightly. … It’s our goal to continue to give (GM Nick Krall) and his staff every available resource that the franchise has in 2025. Then it’s up to Nick how best to spend that,” the COO said. As recently as last week, Krall told reporters (including Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer) that the front office had “a little bit (of payroll flexibility), not a ton.” That came after the Reds acquired Gavin Lux, who’ll make $3.325MM for his penultimate arbitration season. That pushed Cincinnati’s projected payroll to roughly $106MM, per RosterResource. That’s narrowly above the $100MM range at which they ended the ’24 season.
While Krall did not mention the TV situation at the time, he was presumably aware that negotiations were ongoing. It’s possible that Krall was already accounting for the “enhanced” economics that Healy referenced when saying that the team had limited flexibility. Still, Healy’s comments provide some hope for Cincinnati fans about the team potentially making a late-offseason addition. A splash for Jack Flaherty or Anthony Santander remains tough to envision, but the Reds were recently linked to free agent reliever Carlos Estévez. Perhaps that kind of acquisition is more realistic now than it would’ve been had the team stuck with its initial plans to give the broadcasts to MLB.
Main Street Sports is back up to nine teams for which it’ll carry in-market broadcasts: the Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Marlins, Rays, Reds, Royals and Tigers. The Guardians and Twins are still set to allow MLB to handle distribution. They’re following in the footsteps of the Diamondbacks, Padres and Rockies — each of whom was broadcast by MLB this past season. Main Street Sports has also dropped its deal with the Rangers. The Texas organization is not expected to return to Main Street Sports or to sign on with MLB. Mac Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote last month that the Rangers were exploring ways to negotiate individual deals with various cable providers rather than contracting with an RSN.
Crap. That means I guess I have to deal with blackouts again.
I wonder how much more Reds are getting than if they had done the MLB deal.
My guess is quite a bit more. Which is why teams are going back to the DSG stations.
That’s like the largest ignored part of the story.
MLB taking over simply can’t fund the teams the way the RSNs were.
Dammit I don’t want to pay them or get cable again
The RSNs are doing damage to the game.
Pete Rose loves this. What the fudge
I know Pete is smiling ear to ear in the afterlife where ever he may be
Another season of listening to Tommy and his weekly guest host, out of sync of the game. Beats that walking exclamation point that is the play by play hack on Bally (a pig by any other name is still a pig).
If there is a more grating play by play guy than John Sadak, thankfully I have yet to hear him (or her).
If the one-year deal with Fan Duel enhances the team’s revenue as you wrote in this article that the team’s chief operating officer Doug Healy said, in what way does that show they will be getting a lower amount of money?
Logically enhanced revue means they are getting more money, not less.
They are likely getting less money with this deal than the previous deal would have netted them.
However, they are still likely getting more than they would have with MLB handling the broadcast.
So, while it’s less than the previous deal, it enhances the team’s finances because it’s more than they’d get with MLB.
Nice spin, but not what Krall said today.
Good news. Maybe they can trade for Luis Robert Jr now. Please…
Except I was banking on T-Mobile giving me free mlb tv so now I gotta work this into the budget
White Sox price has to be low at this point in the offseason
Or give Santander a castellanos type deal
So the Reds have a deal in place with FanDuel but their beloved Pete Rose died while still being banned from baseball. Nice!
Pointing out a fairly obvious double standard is now dumb, folks.
No explanation or color as to why, it’s just dumb. No wonder this country is circling the toilet.
FanDuel just owns the naming rights for the network of cable stations. The Reds (and other MLB teams contracted with Main Street Sports) aren’t dealing directly with FanDuel itself.
Well except bet MGM had a gambling location in GABP.
Baseball has fully embraced gambling. That doesn’t inherently create a conflict of interest, but it sure increases the chance of a 1919 Blacksox scandal.
Be hilarious to see a player there in between innings lmao. I gotta hunch !
Did FanDuel sleep with a 14 year old?
Your response is dumb. Theres nothing silly in pointing out the hypocrisy.
As a brewers fan the mlb deals must not be worth the time…. The reds and the brewers decided there better off to not accept… now we will see hopefully both teams spend alittle bit I’m not asking for them to spend a ton but show us fans that there’s value there… not your pockets give both teams something the reds need a big hitter middle of the lineup brewers could use a big pitcher… just show us something
How many divisions have the Brewers won over the past four or five years? I would say your organization has shown you a lot.
MLB handling the broadcasts isn’t anything special moneywise. It’s killing the Padres financially. They should do a separate deal with Amazon, Apple TV, Netflix or set up their own RSN which they own 100%. A new MLS team is coming to town
The MLB streaming model like the Padres are on is great for the fans.
The issue is they make no money. Having 45k subscribers just doesn’t cut it. Plus whatever they make from the local cable deals they sign.
This is going to be the largest challenge going forward for baseball. The system will not work as is if 10 teams have massive tv deals and the other 20 have basically zero.
Somehow this will need to be a little more balanced. Perhaps with a tv solution or greater rev sharing from the haves. Maybe is just greater tv revenue sharing.
Apparently the team felt getting something was better than nothing. Maybe they will actually do something now. But I doubt it. They haven’t for years.
The RSN fiasco is something MLB has to deal with, and quickly. This local TV income disparity is killing the sport.
I agree. The big markets just buy their way to better players who are out of reach financially for the small market clubs. There has to be some way to level the playing field. It will probably come (if it does) after a long strike.
Yeah I would expect the next CBA to involve a lost season, or a big chunk of one. From what I can tell the small and mid market teams that are trying to compete have just about had it. Up to this point, the unholy alliance between the MLBPA and the large market teams has carried the day, but there is some serious unhappiness in the rank and file in the PA as well, as their HEAVY lean toward the interests of veterans on mega-contracts doesn’t serve their members. They will approach the negotiations differently this time, and the bulk of team owners will be pushing hard for competitiveness changes.
The players union will start complaining soon. Once the top revenue teams fill their rosters, free agent contracts are going to start trending downward. The revenue for 20 of the 30 teams has dropped. Supply and demand has changed with the Diamond bankruptcy. It can’t be ignored for long.
I think the Boras tactic of holding out for the absolute maximum will start backfiring with this new market reality.
There’s still more buyers than talent out there. Blue jays have all the money in the world and can’t even fill their roster
I consider the Blue Jays a top 10 revenue team by way of owning their own network.
Not to mention they’re the only MLB team in Canada, so they can claim pretty much all of Canada as their market.
I’m going to turn on channel 9 and see if the Mets are on. Then turn the selector to channel 11 to see if the Yankees are on. Oh, maybe the Game of the Week is on channel 4. So many choices. Now? Pfft. I don’t even watch the games any more. But hey, it’s great.
MLB and the Reds making CABLE TV great again
Doesn’t really matter to me either way as long as I can watch my Reds habitually disappoint. One thing I am sure of, whatever extra cash this has generated it will not been seen on the field.
This agreement is worth around $50M to the Reds for 2025. They also get 50% of the DTC revenue worth maybe another million or two. They also get more than $60M annually from the national TV contract. So before they sell a single ticket (or any advertising dollars) they make over $110M annually. Reds could have a $200M payroll and still make a profit.
The association in the same sentence feels like a matter of church and state. The optics just don’t feel right.