The Reds roster appears to be in a holding pattern due to off-field reasons. Ken Rosenthal and Will Sammon of The Athletic report that the club has interest in players like infielder Eugenio Suárez and outfielder Austin Hays but the club is waiting for more clarity on their broadcast situation before proceeding.
Cincinnati was one of nine teams who terminated a contract with Main Street Sports earlier this month. The company has been flailing for years and was in bankruptcy for most of 2023 and 2024, back when it was known as Diamond Sports Group. The company previously ran broadcasts under the Bally Sports moniker. After emerging from bankruptcy, they changed the company name and also signed a new naming rights deal, so the channel has had the FanDuel Sports Network label more recently.
Though the company did emerge from bankruptcy, they haven’t escaped trouble. They recently missed payments to a few clubs, which is what prompted the terminations. The regional sports network (RSN) model has been eroding for years due to cord cutting and streaming.
This puts some clubs in an awkward spot. The RSN model has been a good source of revenue in the past but it has been declining. Some teams have pivoted to having MLB running their broadcasts. This allows them to offer customers a direct-to-customer streaming option with no blackouts, increasing viewership. However, that model generally leads to revenues which are not only lesser but also not guaranteed, as they are contingent on how many people sign up.
Going back to Diamond/Main Street is another option but that usually involves the club taking in less money from rights fees than before. Going into 2025, the Reds looked around for different options but ended up working out a new deal with the company in mid-January.
At the start of the current offseason, president of baseball operations Nick Krall said that the Reds would likely have a similar payroll in 2026 to what they had in 2025, though that was before the Main Street situation cropped up.
Their winter has been fairly quiet, all things considered. They re-signed Emilio Pagán to a two-year, $20MM deal, a small raise over the two-year, $16MM deal which had just expired. They also gave one-year deals worth less than $7MM each to Pierce Johnson, Caleb Ferguson, JJ Bleday and Keegan Thompson, though Thompson was lost to the Rockies via waivers.
The Bleday signing perhaps made Gavin Lux expendable, as the Reds including him in a three-team trade a few weeks later to get lefty Brock Burke. That deal saved Cincinnati a few million, as Lux is going to make $5.525MM this year compared to Burke’s $2.325MM.
RosterResource currently projects the club for a payroll of $112MM. Cot’s Baseball Contracts put them at that same number at the start of 2025. It appears nudging this year’s number up a bit won’t happen without more clarity on the TV situation. Trading Brady Singer would free up some space, as he will make $12.75MM this year, but he has stayed on the roster despite trade rumors this winter.
Suárez would appear to be the less likely of the two potential pursuits. He is coming off a 49-homer campaign and MLBTR predicted him for a three-year, $63MM contract at the beginning of the offseason. Since he has lingered unsigned this long, perhaps it’s more like he ends up with a two-year deal, but it would still be with a decent average annual value.
The Reds have Ke’Bryan Hayes at third base but Suárez is not a great defender and is 34 years old, so he could be slotted into the first base and designated hitter mix, where the Reds have Sal Stewart and Spencer Steer. Stewart had a nice debut in 2025 but only has 58 big league plate appearances under his belt. Steer is coming off a couple of average seasons with the bat and could move into the outfield mix.
Hays should be more viable. The Reds signed him last year with a $5MM guarantee on a one-year deal. He had a solid season but his earning power shouldn’t be too much higher than it was then. He made for a nice complement to their outfield with his righty bat, pairing with lefties TJ Friedl and Lux. He could serve a similar role in 2026, but with Bleday swapped in for Lux.
That would be contingent on him staying unsigned while the Reds sort out their broadcast situation. Hays has also received reported interest from the Royals, Yankees, Mets and Cardinals this winter, though most of those clubs have made other outfield moves since those reports came out.
Photo courtesy of Ron Chenoy, Imagn Images
This team has a chance to make the playoffs, but they need improvements. Sad for small market teams like this.
The Castellini family is worth at last half a billion. They bought the Reds for $270 million in 2006, and the franchise is worth over a billion now, per Forbes.
It’s an original MLB franchise in a fantastic baseball city. They have a great history and a nice ballpark. If they can’t or don’t want to spend, that’s on them.
They should stop crying and sell the team to someone who cares.
Not that easy with the income disparity in the game. Their local TV deal don’t pay the players like in New York or LA. The RSN model is broke except for only a few situations.
If you noticed, only a half dozen teams actually spent a lot this off-season. Ought to tell even people with large market blinders something.
Next CBA, no more local TV deals, all national like the NFL. All monies in a pot to be divided equally among the teams. Salary cap and floor. All monies paid out count against the contract value for the length of the contract no matter when it is paid.
Then and only then can you even think about expansion because no one will join this s***show otherwise.
That being said, Bob needs to sell the club to someone that cares…if he can find a buyer. Others couldn’t recently. But that doesn’t take away from the underlying problem.
With financial transparency and parity and a guaranteed % of revenue going to players, there would be no need for a cap to achieve performance parity, only a floor.
TOBTTR- Just have Castellini call up the Home Shopping Network and maybe they can Televise the games and sell the team at the same time! It could work right? LOL
I don’t disagree but the players won’t agree to a salary cap and half the owners won’t agree to split tv revenue. That scenario = strike.
I also don’t disagree about the need for new owners but I am also starting to wonder about Krall. Both Suarez and Hays would both improve us marginally but both would also take at bats from young players Stewart & Marte. What we need is a left handed bat with proven 25 to 30 home run power. That would improve us much more than Suarez or Hays and we don’t have that in young players.
I still can’t figure out since the Rays evidently wanted Lux why we didn’t trade him to Brandon Lowe. Could have done that and not been much more than Hays and less than Suarez. Reds should have a payroll of about $125 to $135 million with their market size but if given $115 million to work with need to spend it more wisely to improve the team the most in areas needed the most.
You can’t really go “all national” when over a dozen teams own their own networks. Castellini has never been one to spend, even during the best of times with their RSN income so that is just an excuse for why the Reds are sitting on their thumbs as usual
Owners won’t split local broadcasting revenue? They already split 48% of all net local broadcasting cash and that goes for ticket sales, as well.
So true, so true!
Reds highest payroll was 140 million or so in 2021 or 2022.
In the 70s, they paid well. In Marge’s time even, they were always top 5-10 in payroll.
A different local TV environment then though. Not the disparity you see today.
You apparently think I was talking about the Reds specifically rather than about two thirds of baseball teams. I have my own issues with Bob, even more than Lindner before him who wasn’t a great owner either. But being a Red Sox fan, I can see why you want to keep your team’s advantage.
It’s not about keeping an “advantage” but more how would the league force the teams that own their networks to give that up? The quickest way for Manfred to be ousted would be to tell those owners they have to relinquish their broadcast rights and fold their networks
I’d rather have Suarez in DH than have nothing, a left-handed power hitter? name one available.
I like to cry over spilled milk. I am trying to figure out why we didn’t trade for Brandon Lowe since the Rays evidently wanted Gavin Lux. Lux & a mid to upper level prospect like petty or a former top prospect that has not panned out yet like CES would have landed Lowe. For that matter just trade Lux and either of those for Josh Lowe and avoid the angels altogether in the last trade. Josh Lowe not as much proven power as Brandon Lowe but more power than Lux, better than Bleday and 3 more years of control with enough money leftover to sign Hays or Cairo back from the right side. Could have signed Ryan Ohearn as well.
To answer your question though there are not anymore left hand bats that I know of that moves the needle much either free agent or trade. Suarez will be over the stated budget and take a longer term commitment. If anything it will be right handed Hays & Cairo but they will take at bats away from Stewart & Marte without being much better. Suarez should have been traded for last deadline instead of Hayes.
Do you know any ownership group that wants an operating loss? Me neither.
Don’t blame the small market clubs then.
Prove that the 110M$ Reds have an operating loss.
Why keep the team if they aren’t making money?
At least two ways of making money with a sports franchise. One, yearly revenue generates profits. Two, capital gains as the value of the team increases. A team does not have to be profitable in the first sense to see its value increase.
They only own 16% of the team. There is something like 19 different owners overall, with the Castellini’s owning the largest share. So they do not have final say on all the decisions. They just have the most say.
Because they chose to sell nonvoting minority rights to pay off debt they incurred when purchasing the club.
I have read similar around 15% for the Castellinis and 20 different owners or owner groups. What I have read different though is great American insurance or the Linder family trust still owns over 30% and the majority owner. Castellinis are the managing owners though.
Ether way I agree probably like herding cats trying to get 20 different owners to agree on anything. I have always thought this day and age the owner of a franchise of the 4 major sports leagues (MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL & probably MLS now) needs to be one person and a billionaire. Kind of like the major horse farms & racing operations where I am from in Lexington. A hobby for a billionaire not something they expect to make a profit from year after year.
@Shannon – Castellini & the Williams brothers took out 100M$ in debt when they purchased the club, the Reds then paid it down; It’s not unlike the Marlins & Astros sales, the only difference is when they decided to pay it down – right away or wait.
Reds money from Bamtech was supposedly given to the minority shareholders as they’d never received a dividend from owning shares in the club.
Below is how the team’s ownership is split.
——————————————————————————————–
This team’s primary owner is Bob Castellini. Castellini has one of the smaller ownership positions among MLB teams’ primary owners though.
The shares Castellini and the Williams brothers initially purchased for 270 M$ (or roughly 70% of the franchise) came from Carl Lindner, Louise Nippert, William Reik, George Strike, Great American Insurance Company, and the Gannett Co – who combined owned nearly 100% of the club at that time. The Lindner family – 9%, the Nippert family – 6%, Reik – 6%, and Strike – 9% retained the other outstanding 30% of shares after Castellini’s purchase (but the Nippert’s eventually sold their share to Frank Cohen and Strike’s shares were also sold upon his death).
Big Bob’s group (he and the Williams brothers) then immediately turned around and sold a large chunk of their shares to 10 minority owner groups as non-voting shares. Each of them received approximately 3% of the club for a 6.5 M$ investment fee. Leaving Castellini and the Williams’ controlling roughly 40% of the team. The sales were part of the original financing plan Castellini laid out to MLB in his bid for the club. It helped him reduce his debt load down to approximately 35 M$, which was initially 100 M$ of the 270 M$ purchase price.
In all there are 19 different shareholders with at least a 3% stake. Big Bob is the majority shareholder at 15% and he is also listed as the primary owner with MLB, the other 18 shareholders have a smaller stake.
Gotcha. So in effect Castellinis & Williams own 40%, the owners they purchased the team from own 30% mostly Lindner family/Great American & some of that has since changed hands, and 10 different people or groups have 3% ownership but have no say.
That clears most things up other than why anybody especially 10 people or groups would want an ownership stake or share in something knowing they wouldn’t have a say in decisions.
I am a fan in central Kentucky so know nothing about the Cincinnati business community. I did read that Frank Cohen is a hedge or venture capital fund guy. Maybe he can convince the willams to vote with him for control of the company and start running it like the dodgers hedge fund owners run them.
Perks – parking and free beer in the luxury box 😂
Sell the team and they’ll end up in Nashville
MLB has to approve any move of the Reds, which will never happen.
Also, Hamilton County owns the stadium and the Reds aren’t breaking their lease without some serious litigation.
Ownership makes those empty threats to intimidate the fanbase, but fans know better.
If they sold the team, the new owner would be wise to face that litigation. Cincinnati isn’t big enough to support a baseball franchise properly like Nashville is. Has nothing to do with fans or history or litigation, but everything to do with future profits
You talk like Nashville is a large market. It isn’t.
It won’t change anything, and besides MLB won’t allow one of the original franchises to move.
Lousiest ownership in all baseball
Go look at the pirates 40 man roster lol. Reds are not the worse
Net worth doesn’t mean there is cash to throw around. Most smaller markets are taking a big hit between the CBA and the media fall out. It really sucks for teams like the pirates who are on the verge being really good but are also are or close to losing money.
They need some of their youngsters to be productive again. McClain, CES, Steer, and Bleday all fell off. If they get some recovery years from that group plus having Marte and Stewart on the roster the entire year… with the starting pitching they have this team COULD be dangerous, imho.
Some of these situations fall under the category of “sad”. This team has a history of not spending available funds and belittling its fans. The only thing sad here is that ownership won’t pony up for the fans’ sakes.
Where else are you going to go?
Wow wouldn’t that be so unfair if they had to put an entertaining team on the field in order to make more revenue? What a messed up world we live in.
That’s funny. Increase the product on the field and the revenue will go up. Why wanting to spend on Schwarber because he was a local was puzzling. If Gavin lux had been local it wouldn’t increase revenue because he hits 8 home runs in 162 games and might add one win. Schwarber would generate more revenue because he hits 60 home runs in 162 games and adds 8 wins but not for just being local. Wins increase revenue not a bunch of local players that can’t win.
Underwhelming if true. They should’ve never pretended to entertain 30 million to Schwarber if they were gonna be this anti-aggressive for the rest of the offseason. Sigh. Hope these young guys can start to click.
Could it be possible the ownership believed bringing in a local guy, who has had success, were banking on selling more tickets? I’ve lived in the central/northern ky area all my life. These people are come out the wood work when there’s a reason.
The fans have for Elly, they had their best attendance in years last year.
Too bad the team is letting them down. They probably should have known better.
Schwarber admitted he played them (and Pittsburgh) to get more from the Phillies. The fans need to tell him about it the next time he goes home.
Nope, the Reds never had any belief that Schwarbs would come home.
I live in Lexington and have had a Saturday ticket package for several years. I wouldn’t go to anymore games whether they had signed Schwarber or not but because of living an hour and half away. I would be willing to pay more per game but not because Schwarber is local but because he is good and would generate more wins.
20 or so more tickets a game sold to people from Middletown would pale in comparison the the 2,000 or more sold per game to people from northern ky, central ky, southern Indiana, WV & Columbus because we win 90 instead of 83.
Wow, a playoff team can’t even spend the league average. I guess we’ll blame the Dodgers for this too.
No one’s blaming the Dodgers, they’re blaming the revenue structure of the league. The Reds simply do not have the money. When the Dodgers sign Tucker et al, that just reminds fans of the massive unfairness of it. No one’s saying the Dodgers are at fault for taking advantage while they can.
Maybe no one is saying that here but everywhere else they are saying it.
Actually, they should be thanking the Dodgers for making the economic problems that MLB has even more obvious to everyone with half a brain.
Now, what will be done about it?
Remains to be seen what, if anything, is attempted…
They have money they are not spending. Do they have as much as the Dodgers? Of course not, but there are more funds than they are shelling out.
Go look at the history of ownership and general management, their words, their about faces, and their focus on maximizing retention of funds for ownership.
The Reds DO have the money, they have chosen not to spend it. Per Forbes, the Reds are a Net Profit leader, year-in/year-out…
Going from cable to streaming most certainly does NOT produce more viewers. It reduces viewership by quite a bit, as the effect of no-blackouts is overwhelmed by the effect of viewers having to pay specifically to watch the games. The reason why the Dodgers get so much from their RSN is because cable viewers, back when the agreement was signed, had no choice what was included in their package.
Didnt know this. Thanks for the info!
An article from the San Diego Union Tribune last spring puts numbers to this:
“The Padres have received significant financial assistance from MLB to help make up for what they lost in the TV deal, which was valued at about $50 million per year. Multiple sources have indicated, however, that the Padres generate somewhere between $20 and $30 million from their media deals. That would put them by many industry estimates not only at the bottom of the league but at less than 10% of what the Dodgers are making from their TV deal.”
The Padres CEO said publicly that the only money lost was one payment from Diamond Sports Group.
For the Padres and Diamondbacks the move from an RSN to MLB managing their broadcasts increased viewership. Having no local blackouts meant being able to sell a significant number of streaming accounts within their local area to people that did not subscribe to cable or satellite TV carriers. both teams say increases in the number of TV homes reached when MLB took over and negotiated deals with all the former carriers the RSN had been doing business with and added other areas. For the Padres it was 1.1 million more people. The Dodgers got that much money for one reason, media market size. As far as no choice, the choice has always been to have cable or satellite or not have it. They are in an area with multiple carriers and many if not most were unable to get Dodgers games at all for the first decade of their deal. There are many articles about that in the LA Times, Press Enterprise, and OC Register.
At this point a free agency I would be actually more excited to see them resign Andujar than them sign any of the other ones on an overpay
You get what you pay for, which is their problem for decades now.
Darragh, there is no evidence that having MLB manage the team’s broadcast has led to lower revenue. In at least two cases the team’s CEO or managing partner has expressed that their TV revenue has increased and as a result they have increased spending. Please stick to the facts.
The fact that Elly declined his extension offer means the Reds window with him is probably 2 more years. The time to strike is now for this team. The pitching is there and it would be nice to see them build the offense to complement them. I’m still hopeful, but we shall see.
They probably have 3 years. A switch hitter batting 3rd and steer, Stewart and Stephenson 3 right handed hitters capable of 20 home runs batting 5th thru 7th. A left handed bat capable of 30 or more home runs that can play against left handed pitching (not just a platoon) batting cleanup would make the lineup so much better by giving EDLC protection and offset the fact of 2 sub .700 ops hitters batting 8th & 9th.
Stephenson will probably be gone next year if he lasts the year. Offense will suffer even more. Trevino won’t provide it and the backup will be a backup. Duno is 2-3 years away, assuming he stays a catcher.
Unfortunately that cleanup hitter won’t come. Rodriguez is the one they are waiting for and who knows what he will do in the bigs.
They stuck themselves with the Hayes contract for some unknown reason when they knew they were bringing up Stewart, in addition to paying Candelario 16 million to stay home. They have 24 million or so tied up in a corner infield position supplying no offense. Brilliant!
When the Reds signed Jeimer, everyone in the fan base immediately knew it was a terrible signing. After he’s been cut, we trade for Ke’Bryan a month or so later. Yes, Hayes defense is spectacular, but the remaining contract stinks because of his lack of offensive production. I still don’t understand why Krall doubled down on these payroll strangling decisions.
Couldn’t agree more
I am with you on Hayes. Not even Stewart but the had Marte at third and seems like his offensive production dropped some when moved to right field. It was obvious by the trade deadline our biggest weakness wasn’t defense even if it was a weakness, our biggest weakness was lack of power. Why we didn’t trade for Suarez as a rental instead of Hayes as a long term commitment is unexplainable.
I am not sure how defensive stats work but if it’s by my logic a run is a run and 5 runs = 1 win then at the deadline Hayes had 17 defensive runs saved and Suarez -6 for net 23 to Hayes. Suarez had 86 RBI and Hayes had 34 net 52 to Suarez. Overall net 29 Suarez in 2/3 of a season or net 14.5 in 1/3 of a season which was what was left at the deadline. 3 extra wins we are not playing dodgers first round.
I get it that Suarez didn’t have as good of a season after the deadline and Hayes hit a little better after he came here but Suarez would have probably hit better here than Seattle. No way to know on July 31 what either player would do after that but best predictor or what decisions should have been made on were what they had done to that point.
Ever hear the old adage if a player can hit they will find a position for him to play. This isn’t football where defense is the most important aspect or basketball where a good offensive player has to also be able to play decent defense. Baseball offense is more important than defense in my opinion especially with pitchers that miss bats like ours do.
This is a problem of their ownership’s own making – a refusal to be flexible and ask the minority owners to cough up more money (or put it in themselves). I’m a Reds fan, but I have ZERO sympathy for owners of a team worth $1.5 billion refusing to come up with $7 million to pay Austin Hayes.
Or anyone else.
>a two-year, $20MM deal, a small raise over the two-year, $16MM deal
A 25% raise after two years is “small.” Okay.
I like acquiring castellanos for left field. Phillies can take Brandon Williamson or Julian Aguilar. Or both 🤷♂️
Castellanos has had success there and still hit 17 homers last season which is more then nearly every red
Cast is probably getting released in 3 weeks.
You can get Castellanos for league minimum, probably very soon. That might actually be a pretty nice move for them
Making the playoffs was probably ownership’s worst nightmare.
Not only did they get no playoff revenue since the Dodgers ran them over in the WC round, but now the fanbase has expectations that ownership will never meet because they’re cheap and lazy.
Disappointing, really.
They should have signed Murakami for peanuts. Amateurs.
This is rubbish. Each team gets close to $200 mil in revenue sharing. The floor for payroll should be close to $175 mil. It’s appalling that a team like the Reds don’t spend.
I’m not sure I understand the Hayes contract issues. Yes he’s getting paid a nice clip compared to mostly all of us, but for the most part for a baseball player doesn’t seem like he’s being overpaid at all. He’s a premier fielder I get that he doesn’t hit ideally for a third baseman and they need hitters, but I would definitely like to have his gold glove over there where Elly seems to be the opposite of a gold Glover and since he’s not willing to move or hasn’t been asked to move off positions, third base needs to have a vacuum cleaner and that’s exactly what Hayes is
MLB mandates that only one party within an ownership group, often the majority owner, can serve as media representative for a team. Though the Reds have nearly two dozen ownership interests, it’s the Castellini’s front and center.
As for crying poor, the Reds had revenue in the range of the Blue Jays, but invested half as much in roster payroll.
The numbers, via finance firms, speak for themselves. Here’s the analysis:
twinstrivia.com/2025/04/05/mlb-teams-revenue-versu…
Well not exactly equal if I recall what Blue Jays fans have said. I believe it is the Rogers Centre for a reason and they get income from the stadium also outside what the team brings in. I also wonder if that includes postseason income from their World Series run.
That is good info. I would say that there is more expenses though than player salaries and those are more of a fixed cost for every team or close to a fixed cost. They all pay close to the same for things like game day personnel, marketing, admin, scouting & minor league affiliates. I totally agree the reds should spend more than they do but to expect their percentage of player salaries to be what a large market team is is not realistic. My pure guess is a team like the Mets can probably spend 75% of revenue on player salaries (cohen has a lot more money to lose) to break even and a small market team about 50% which would put the reds around $160 to $165 million in payroll. Enough to get a left handed power bat.
A 62 million difference is not quite close…
Shannon, we know they have spent 140 million before and they just had their highest attendance in years last year, so there is really no excuse.