Major League Baseball will pick up six new broadcast teams in 2026, reports The Puck’s John Ourand. The six clubs are the Brewers, Marlins, Rays, Royals, Cardinals and Reds. That represents six of the nine clubs that terminated their contracts with Main Street Sports last month. That leaves the Braves, Tigers and Angels as the three clubs from that group of nine that still need to formalize this year’s broadcast programs.
The company seems to be hanging on by a thread for a long time. Cord cutting and broadcasting have been destroying the regional sports network (RSN) model for years. Formerly known as Diamond Sports Group and operating under the Bally Sports logo, the company has been bankrupt for most of 2023 and 2024. When it came out of bankruptcy in late 2024, it changed the company’s name and switched to the FanDuel Sports brand. Another disturbance recently broke out as it was reported that they missed paying many teams, which is why these nine teams left last month.
In recent years, MLB has held broadcasts for several other clubs that have seen the collapse of RSN deals. The Padres, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Twins and Guardians had a league in 2025. In those cases, the league kept the same TV broadcast, keeping most of the staff. For fans, this plan worked better as it didn’t involve local power outages. Customers without cable packages can purchase streaming packages directly from the league.
For the teams, this audience has been expanded but the financial situation was not so good. Instead of a guaranteed payment from the RSN, they instead received a nominal amount based on broadcast numbers. Exact numbers have not been made available but the industry consensus is that teams are bringing in less revenue with this model than they did with the previous RSN system. MLB.com’s Travis Sawchik says the new model only delivers about 50% of RSN’s previous setup.
This often has consequences in the field. Some of those teams, especially the Padres and Twins, have seen their players’ salaries drop over the years. The lower spending volume seems to have had an effect Juan Soto traded from the Padres to the Yankees a few years ago as well Carlos Correa trade from the Twins to the Astros last summer, among other moves.
It was reported in September that ESPN would be acquiring the property rights to those five teams for the next three years. It is unclear how that will affect local customers who have been paying the league directly to broadcast games. Even in September it was reported that the Mariners will also be moving to this league. Last month, the Nationals announced they would be moving to the MLB model.
If we assume that the league will still sell the broadcast packages of the five teams it carried last year, then the league will have at least 13 teams in its portfolio next season. With three clubs remaining, MLB is likely to reach more than half of the league.
Commissioner Rob Manfred has talked about his desire to market a streaming package similar to MLB.TV but without the home blackout. Controlling the rights to almost half of the league will make that more effective. Expanding the portfolio further will be a challenge. Most of the big market clubs already have good healthy RSN positions and would have little interest in jumping into a syndicated program with these clubs.
That’s part of a broader strategy the league will implement over the next few years. A large number of the league’s broadcast deals expire after 2028. Manfred’s hope is to remain flexible until then, when he can try to sell corporate packages of combined rights. As an example of how this could play out, the ESPN deal recently fell through but MLB then chose to split it up and sell it to various companies. ESPN bought some pieces and acquired new ones, while Netflix and NBC/Peacock acquired other parts.
It will take a few years to see how it all plays out. In the short term, it may have an impact on future negotiations for collective bargaining agreements. The current CBA expires on December 1 of this year. Presumably, MLB doesn’t want those negotiations to lead to canceled games in 2027. Ratings and attendance have increased recently, with the clock speeding up the potential explanation. Missing games due to the gap would hurt that momentum, which would not help the league in selling the rights next year.
For fans of the teams involved in today’s news, new information about streaming options should be forthcoming. The Cardinals have already announced their streaming prices, which are $19.99 monthly or $99.99 for a full season. Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald explained the situation to Marlins fans today, with more details to come.
This may also affect the payment of players at other clubs. Although the streaming model is a small source of income, these groups now have some clarity on what kind of money should come in this year. Since two weeks ago, the Reds are reported to be interested in young players Eugenio Suarez but they are reluctant to make further moves until they understand the broadcast puzzle. They are said to have reached an agreement with Suárez yesterday.
Photo courtesy of Ron Chenoy, Imagn Images
