Major League Baseball will take over the broadcasts of six new teams in 2026, reports John Ourand of Puck. The six clubs are the Brewers, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Cardinals and Reds. That represents six of the nine clubs who terminated deals with Main Street Sports last month. That leaves the Braves, Tigers and Angels as the three clubs from that group of nine who still need to formalize broadcast plans for this year.
The company has seemingly been hanging by a thread for a long time. Cord cutting and streaming have been eroding the regional sports network (RSN) model for years. Previously known as Diamond Sports Group and operating under the Bally Sports logo, the company was in bankruptcy for most of 2023 and 2024. When they emerged from bankruptcy late in 2024, they changed the company name and switched to the FanDuel Sports branding. More trouble emerged recently as they reportedly missed payments to several teams, which is what prompted the nine teams to walk away last month.
In recent years, MLB has handled the broadcasts of several other clubs who saw RSN deals collapse. The Padres, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Twins and Guardians were with the league in 2025. In those instances, the league largely kept TV broadcasts the same, retaining most of the personnel. For fans, this arrangement worked better as it did not involve local blackouts. Customers without cable packages could buy streaming packages directly from the league.
For teams, this expanded viewership but the financial situation wasn’t as good. Instead of a guaranteed fee from the RSN, they instead got a fungible amount of money based on streaming numbers. Clear numbers haven’t been made available but the industry consensus is that teams bring in less money via this model than they did via the previous RSN system. Travis Sawchik of MLB.com says the new model only brings in about 50% of the previous RSN set-up.
This often has on-field implications. Some of those teams, particularly the Padres and Twins, saw their player payrolls decrease in recent years. The lower spending capacity seemingly had an impact on Juan Soto being traded from the Padres to the Yankees a couple of years ago and Carlos Correa getting traded from the Twins to the Astros last summer, among other moves.
It was reported in September that ESPN would be acquiring the local rights for those five teams for the next three years. It’s unclear how that will impact local customers who have been paying the league directly to stream games. Also in September, it was reported that the Mariners would also be moving to the league. Last month, the Nationals announced that they would be moving to the MLB model.
Assuming the league will still be selling streaming packages for the five teams it was handling last year, then the league will have at least 13 teams in its portfolio in the coming season. With three clubs still outstanding, it’s possible MLB could get to more than half the league.
Commissioner Rob Manfred has previously spoken of his desire to market a streaming package like MLB.TV but without local blackouts. Controlling the rights for roughly half the league will make that more viable. Expanding the portfolio even further will be challenging. Most of the larger-market clubs still have pretty healthy RSN situations and would have less interest in jumping into a pooled system with these clubs.
That is part of a broader league strategy that will come into play in the next few years. A large number of the league’s broadcast deals expire after 2028. Manfred’s hope is to maintain as much flexibility as possible until then, at which point he could try to sell companies packages of combined rights. As an example of how this might play out, ESPN’s deal recently fell apart but then MLB pivoted to split it up and sell it to various companies. ESPN bought back some bits and acquired some new ones, while Netflix and NBC/Peacock acquired other components.
It will take a few years to see how that all plays out. In the shorter term, it could impact the upcoming collective bargaining agreement negotiations. The current CBA expires December 1st of this year. Presumably, MLB doesn’t want those talks to lead to canceled games in 2027. Ratings and attendance have been up lately, with the faster pace of the pitch clock a possible explanation. Missed games due to a lockout would hurt that momentum, which wouldn’t help the league in selling rights the following year.
For fans of the teams involved in today’s news, new information about broadcast options should be forthcoming. The Cardinals already announced their streaming prices, which are $19.99 monthly or $99.99 for the full season. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald outlined the situation for Marlins fans today, with some more details still to be determined.
This could also impact player payroll for some clubs. Though the streaming model is a less certain source of revenue, these teams now at least have some clarity on what kind of money should be coming in this year. As of less than two weeks ago, the Reds were reportedly interested in players like Eugenio Suárez but reluctant to make more moves until they figured out the broadcast puzzle. They reportedly reached an agreement with Suárez yesterday.
Photo courtesy of Ron Chenoy, Imagn Images
Could’ve been first but nothing to say on it
I wonder what the revenues from this really look like. They used to announce the RSN contract values, but the closest anyone has come to valuing these streaming deals was in the San Diego paper a couple years ago when the first one showed up there. They claimed the money was much lower, but that was before the league began sweetening things with luxury tax cash. I get that this will be the last year of this piecemeal restitution before the CBA tackles the revenue elephant, but knowing anything, even subscriber counts, would help explain what teams are facing.
You can tell from ratings and subscription price that the revenue is a small fraction of what they used to get.
The subscription price seems standard for the Midwest teams. Most teams did the exact same pricing last year
Good question. Teams don’t seem to want to talk about this.
Also it’s not just the streaming revenue. These clubs are also making deals with local cable broadcasting. It’s not like you can only watch these games locally via mlb streaming.
Be nice to have their tv revenue be made public.
Padres payroll peaked in 2023. Went down in 2024. Since has gone up in 2025 and likely again in 2026.
This sight keeps saying it’s decreasing in recent years. It decreased one year, while also resetting the tax which many clubs have done.
How many years in a row does it have to go up before this sites starts saying the padres payroll has increased in recent years?
Agreed. And the idea that they traded Soto as some sort of salary dump is hilarious. They traded Soto because they weren’t going to pay 700 mil to keep him and they could get a lot back by flipping him.
The funny thing in 2023 was the three highest payrolls all flopped. The Mets had the highest to start the season and they won 76 games. The Yankees and Padres were 2nd and 3rd in payroll and both won 82 games. None of them made the playoffs.
Back to the Padres, them being cash strapped has been a common theme here since Seidler passed. That didn’t stop them from extending Merrill for 135m a year ago or giving Pivetta 55m a month earlier.
Teams are always looking at how to best allocate their resources. When it comes to the Padres just because they are not spending like they did 3 years ago when the owner pushed all the chips in, for good reason, doesn’t mean they’re slashing payroll or no longer spending.
Plus 75m to king this year. Though he may opt out.
For those fans concerned about quality issues.. the Guards were with the league last season and the transition was just fine, in my opinion. All the same key on-air personnel and no major changes.
It depends if those guys hired by the team or by the broadcasting company. Team guys stay no matter who’s in charge of the broadcasting rights generally
Did you have to pay for an espn sub in addition to paying for the team package?
Russell- no. You don’t need an espn sub. You won’t next year either. After that we shall see.
Cleveland’s newish local TV contract gets the Guardians onto TV in Buffalo and much of western New York. That can only add to the club’s fanbase.
The announcers are usually paid by their respective teams. The networks really don’t have a say.
I’m sure Angels owner is working night and day to get it done. I think to start the BevMo Angels Network.
Dolemite,
The Angels are the worse run organization in the league when one considers all factors. They have a huge market, had 2 generational players with star power (marketability), and excellent weather that should not prevent fans from attending. But they have managed to squander everything, largely due to the owner. The Dodgers control the Southern California narrative and a whole generation of would-be fans will be Dodger fans.
So Artie will screw this up as well. You have to wonder how he made his money to afford to buy the team in light of his incompetence running the Angels
I think since the Braves helped build TBS, TBS should offer a honey of a deal
TBS (1) has one of the national contracts (2) and is part of Warner Bros. Discovery, which the Ellison family is vowing to snatch and split up.
Manfred’s iron fist:
Force all 30(+) teams onto a league-controlled broadcast plan, institute revenue sharing through this mechanism. Increase luxury tax penalties by making big payroll teams forfeit certain draft picks to small payroll teams, make all draft picks trade-able, institute a salary floor.
What do you think?
You said one thing I agree with: Make all draft picks tradeable.
bham- I 100% agree make all draft picks tradable. This would make the deadline, draft and the offseason much more interesting
I say sure, but I don;t own the Dodgers and their Ridiculou$ Broadca$t deal. There is no way on earth they accede to that.
@crise Good thing they are only 1 of 30 teams and it’s not up to them.
I agree with all of that except there should be a salary cap. MLB should have an NFL-style system. A floor and a cap that aren’t that far apart and it changes grafually each year based on total revenues.
What a debacle.
I would hate for Blum and TK to go.
I’m a Tigers fan living in Columbus, Ohio so I’m a big fan of MLB.tv because home games were never blacked out. That being said, before the Guards went with the league broadcast there was no legal way for me to watch Reds, Pirates or Guards games because they were all regionally blacked out. Absolutely ridiculous and hopefully league control would fix this.
All 9 of the remaining Main Street Sports ballclubs have opted out according to Sports Business Journal.
The Braves are looking to set up their own mini-network, either on a national platform (such as Prime) or a hybrid streaming/cable/ broadcast setup (similar to the Texas Rangers). The other 8 clubs plan to go with MLB Media or a similar platform.
Imagine if the article’s six teams were the Dodgers, Yankees, Nets, Phillies, Red Sox and Cubs. What would that say about the state of the game?
Awesome. Now I can watch the Rockies vs Reds games without the stupid blackout. I live in the Reds viewing area, but watch the Rox. I usually just skip watching those games because I cannot stand the bald Reds announcer that replaced Thom Brennaman.
Wow really? I liked Thom Brenneman, but I think John Sadak is great. “That ball had a family!”
I cannot stand him. He gets WAY too excited for fairly mundane plays. I like announcers that get excited, but save it for the really exciting moments and not a leadoff double in a 7-2 game.
That’s fair. I like it though. Different strokes for different folks.
He seems to be a very genuine guy which I appreciate, he does get too excited sometimes but I don’t think it’s for show.
Why haven’t the Braves just gone back to TBS?
Because TBS doesn’t want them and Ted Turner doesn’t own the network anymore.
No offense but probably the same reason your not driving a vehicle made in 1980. Things change.
Be nice to have an article that talks about, and ranks, the healthiest to unhealthiest teams from a broadcasting standpoint. My guess would have the Dodgers, Jays and Yankees leading. But maybe not. Be nice to see that though.
I think the Cubs and Mets are also in good shape.
You can’t polish a turd. And you can rename it all you want, but it’s still a turd. A turd named Sinclair Broadcasting.
What a surprise Angels do what Atlanta is doing. They must of been separated at birth.
I noticed no difference from years past. Watched about 150+ games through cable. Could have watched more except sometimes the local team pops up on ESPN or FOX and I refuse to watch, either.
Comcast charges me a big sports network fee
Which I do not have a choice in accepting