There’s a bit more clarity on the broadcast situation for the Angels. Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register reports that the club has an agreement in place to purchase a portion of Main Street Sports and launch their own TV network. Some final details are still being worked out, so it won’t be officially announced until next week.
The new network will also involve the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings and has not yet been named, but it will replace FanDuel Sports Network on cable and satellite providers in Southern California. Fans can also purchase a streaming package directly from the league. It would be $99.99 for just the Angels or $199.99 for the full league experience.
The Angels were one of nine MLB teams who had a deal with Main Street Sports as of a few months ago. That company, who owned the FanDuel Sports Network channels, has been having financial troubles for years as people move away from cable subscriptions and towards digital streaming. Main Street missed some payments to some clubs earlier this year, prompting all nine of them to terminate their deals. Within less than a month, six of them pivoted to having MLB handle their broadcasts.
Atlanta, the Tigers and the Angels were the three left up in the air. Atlanta launched BravesVision last month, a team-owned entity which will sell streaming rights to fans and work out TV deals in the future. The Tigers announced Detroit SportsNet earlier this week. It seems like MLB will be heavily involved in that one, as the network will be “powered by MLB” and subscribers can stream the Tigers through the MLB app. The network will broadcast the Tigers and the NHL’s Red Wings on television.
The Angels’ network will seemingly share some traits with Detroit SportsNet. Both will involve one MLB club and an NHL team. Both will also seemingly involve the MLB handling the streaming side of things.
This seems to be a positive development for fans. For those watching on television, nothing will really change. Even the on-air talent is expected to remain in place. For those who wants to stream the club locally with no blackouts, that is now possible. The impact for the club’s bottom line is less clear. As of a few years ago, the Angels were getting $125MM annually from their deal with Main Street, then known as Diamond Sports Group. Opening up local streaming will make up for some of that but surely not all.
RosterResource projects the Angels for a payroll of about $180MM this year, roughly $25MM shy of last year. That doesn’t account for the fact that Anthony Rendon agreed to defer most of his $38MM salary, saving the Halos about $30MM in the short term. Owner Arte Moreno recently spoke on the club’s financial situation and acknowledged that uncertainty with in the TV department was impacting spending. “Will it get back to $200 million? Probably,” Moreno said of the payroll. “We’ve got to get our TV thing worked out and we just have to improve our brand.”
Presumably, the new broadcast deal won’t immediately impact the roster. The Angels still have to work out things in terms of cable and satellite. They also presumably want to feel out the new streaming setup for a bit before making any rash decisions. There are still some notable free agents unsigned, including starting pitchers Lucas Giolito and Zack Littell. The Halos could use some extra depth in the rotation but it’s unclear if they plan to make a push for either of those two, or any other free agents.
Internally, the Angels will have a new leader on the business side. President John Carpino is going to retire on April 6th and will be replaced by senior vice president Molly Jolly. General manager Perry Minasian remains the front office leader on the baseball side.
Photo courtesy of Kirby Lee, Imagn Images
I’m sure everyone will be watching; lst.
Anthony Rendon, coming to you live with color commentary….
Might as well extract some value from that deal….
I can actually see this happening.
100 bucks says Tony 2 Bags drops the microphone on his foot and is out 3 months.
Now the Angels just need to create a baseball team and they are good to go!
LOL
Made from all of the $ they save on payroll. I expect the Rays, Pirates, and Rockies to be the next to announce a TV network.
Pirates have a network
Rsox..
Its an interesting question how all that continues.
Pirates *only* have a network because they bundled their rights with the Penguins in NHL.
The Penguins relied on their owners, Fenway Sports Group, to use the experience and technology used by NESN for the Red Sox to make an economies of scale affordability opportunity for those two clubs.
If FSG divests majority share of the Penguins, then its an open question what share of the broadcast revenues they retain, and, if its profitable any longer – or if payouts on the Pirates take go down because costs go up, since FSG (Red Sox) stop subsidizing the services under the NESN infrastructure and charge higher production rates.
Will they after Fenway Sports Group completes the sale of the Pens?
The Ducks play like a mile away from Angel’s Stadium. They pair up with the Kings? I get that it’s how the streaming stuff fell out but it’s just weird.
Well the Kings are currently on Fan Duel, which is a portion of the Main Street Sports they’re purchasing. The Duck are streamed on Victory+, with many of their games (not all) broadcast on a local TV station.
I get a lot of crap, Mostly from young people for being a Kings fan while living in OC. But I’ve been a Kings (and Angels) fan since the early 70s, Way before the Mighty Ducks ever existed. So this TV deal will work for me!
At least they are in control of their content and can set up distribution without much change to fans.
Distribution is already in place — the new Angels channel will replace FanDuel Sports West. Angels also will go direct-to-consumer as MLBTR said up top.
Their feature is that they play better teams to try to draw an audience
“It’s a show about nothing!”
Losing the AL west is making me thirsty!
My bet is they’ll try to save money by broadcasting in analog only.
And no one will notice.
Sounds like how the Royals broadcast…
Nobody originates TV in analog anymore. All production and transmission are digital.
President Molly Jolly.
Have a Molly Jolly Streamsmas, It’s the worst time of the year… you’ll be told that they’ll be gold, but they’ll be nothing to cheer.
She is tough and smart and will be better than Carpino on the business side
What could go wrong with having a bean counter in charge of baseball ops?
Big changes for the Los Angeles Angels: new network, team president stepping down after the Skaggs judgment- John Carpino gone — let the dominos fall. Arte Moreno must go. Time for a real rebuild.
Don’t the Angels already have Mother Angelica and the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN)?
Different Angels…
…and they aren’t in the outfield.
EWTN is a Catholic broadcaster (and one that’s not friendly to the American-born Pope Leo XIV).
Oops, my bad.
Does anyone know if the free annual MLB.tv offer from T-Mobile will work for the Angels now? Or is there still a blackout because I’m local and T-Mobile offer is different?
I’m wondering if that benefit is even happening at all, with MLB.tv moving under ESPN…
T-Mobile has already announced it through the 2028 season. After that, who knows…
Ohh, have they? I couldn’t find anything about it when I went looking the other day. Great news if so.
If it’s anything like the Cubs and White Sox, this new network will have blackouts too.
Games on national broadcasts will still be blacked out if you don’t subscribe to that service. ESPN or whatever its on.
Yeah, Ive been waiting for the Tmobile announcement, too. To finally actually get to watch games when I want, again..
T-Mobile offer is national. If you live locally, you will have to buy the $99/yr local streaming package to get all the games on streaming without a blackout.
That’s some serious BULLLLLLLLLSSHHHHHH…
Not developing a broadcast distribution network when they still had Trout and Ohtani is Arte’s biggest mistake. Dodgers have the biggest cash cow in American sports.
Because Arte doesn’t know how to play like a billionaire he’s a short-sighted man and it shows.
First: Broadcast TV is closer to collapse than you think.
Second: The Dodgers made sure they get paid even if Spectrum goes bust.
They did have a pretty big tv contract in the 2010s, as seen by the ridiculous contracts they gave Hamilton, Pujols, CJ Wilson, Trout, and Rendon. Their problem, like many other teams, was their regional network going belly up.
Arte vision. 4$ beer cans and hot dogs
That will make 17 teams that own/co-own their own networks.
I can see the Rays partnering with the Lightning and the Rockies partnering with either the Nuggets or Avalanche at some point as well to form networks
Losers Dot TV
This is the plot of the movie The Ring.
Seems to be all the rage lately.
MLB, by choosing to continue down the fragmented-media road, is ensuring that a relatively equal playing field remains a concept rather than policy. The league needs a shared-revenue, ideally universally accessible, live-broadcast model that all teams share equally.
That would be a clearly defined amount and could be the baseline for payroll considerations. It would be comparatively easy to address significant over- or underage situations via the tax model or a scaled loss-of-draft-pick penalty.
Leave all other revenues out of any redistribution program unless required for mandated obligations. Those revenues will, in most cases, continue to provide an advantage to the teams who currently hold a financial edge. By treating MLB broadcasts as the entity, not individual teams, more fans will have reason, and opportunity, to tune in.
Now, if I could just get a stadium feed with no commentary ….
Not really a perfect answer.
Red Sox hold an advantage due to having heavily invested and built out NESN when everyone else was content taking the cable TV handouts.
But, stadium ticket sales, concessions, all the rest are heavily restricted by the size of Fenway Park.
The shortfall in capacity is made up for, and then some, by the existence of NESN and their controlling media rights.
Under your proposal, Boston becomes one of the poorest franchises in MLB overnight.
And, I hope baseball keeps being played in that little band box of a park for as long as we have baseball. Catching a game there is like visiting the roots of baseball.
TV and local revenue including ticket sales all put in a pot and distributed in 30 shares. Then it doesn’t matter the size of the TV market or the ballpark capacity.
There is no perfect answer …as long as there are 30 owners who have to reach consensus.
Aside from that, don’t sell Red Sox fans short: I am pretty sure the brand does alright in retail sales. Some of that is derived from the history you want, and I agree should be, protected.
My suggestion would have teams retaining their “earned” share of those revenues, not an equalization share, offsetting some of that loss of broadcast revenue.
Orange County is a wonderful place to live: gorgeous weather, a large selection of restaurants and if you want to watch professional baseball dodger stadium is just an hour away
Angels fans will be ecstatic that Carpino is stepping aside. Alas, Arte still owns the team, Arte selected the new President and the new President is a long time Angels executive with strong ties to Arte and Carpino… ugh. Please sell the team, Arte.
I’ve been wondering about this all day, since the news broke.
How much of an effect on the team will the incoming President really have? I guess time will tell.
I’m thinking what I’ve heard – Arte waiting out the new CBA and expansion before he sells, makes the most sense.. which means Ms Jolly won’t have much of an effect?
Sadly, long time bean counter for the team, Molly Jolly, will now be in charge of baseball ops.
Molly Jolly? 😆
This is by marriage, Molly Jolly is not her parents given name. That was the first question I asked her. She in awesome, great person. Don’t know if she can run the front office, but it couldn’t be worse.
aFfOrDabiLitY. Don’t join the team who’s stadium you can see from your own and who’s charging the customer nothing to watch quality Hockey games. Join with the team who’s 2 hours away and is the opposite of a shared fan base, oh and charge $100 for a terrible product. Arte can go whistle for his $.
The customer is NOT being charged “nothing to watch” anything. TV has always been paid for with advertiser (and now viewer) money.
Another great marketing move by the Angels. It is the main focus of this team. It’s always good when Arte’s business friends make decisions for the Angels. They make more money that way.
YAY! We will have TV. Too bad we won’t have many wins. Now that there is a TV deal, can you PLEASE sell Arte?
After MLB expansion happens..
That will be announced in the next CBA negotiations. What cities is your money on? I am going with one west coast team and one mid-america team. Portland and Nashville.
That seems to be the general consensus. Makes about as much sense as anywhere. I don’t have any clue.
The better question is, which players are those new teams gonna snag off the rosters of various teams?
Best news here is Carpino.
The purge begins..
Let it flow
Carpino took a team fresh off three consecutive AL West titles and helped turn it into the team with the longest postseason drought in all of baseball.
Now we have the teams long time bean counter in charge of baseball ops. What would go wrong? If you look at the history of the CFO taking over as the CEO of major corporations, you should get a good indication. It’s not pretty.
I was hoping the Angels broadcast would end up on Corncob TV.
Does not matter how you can watch a televised game, the Angels would be lucky to win 60 games this season. Sadly but so true
Hopefully Arte will make it “affordable” to stay at home to watch the game at $199.99 per season.
After the network launches, in year two, every other game will be on either Apple TV, MLB.tv, ESPN, Prime, Roku, Netflix, NBC, Martha Stewart, and Discovery.
Let’s not forget the PLAYBOY channel
The Los Angeles Empire proudly unveils the future of Angels baseball.”
The Angels have made a bold move today, announcing that their brand‑new television home will be none other than KDOC Channel 56, Southern California’s most legendary “Wait, that channel still exists?” broadcast destination
Bring back Wally, George
In a related story, Moreno’s entire broadcast production staff is looking to bounce back to a once mediocre media career.