Over the last couple of years, a number of MLB teams have had their RSN deals either end or collapse, and their TV rights have reverted to the league.
Prior to 2026, the Padres, Diamondbacks, Rockies, Guardians, Twins and Mariners had their TV rights assigned to MLB Local Media, the league’s production arm for local broadcasts. The Mariners continued to broadcast games on ROOT Sports Northwest for the 2025 season, but that RSN shut down near the end of the season and the Mariners created “Mariners.TV” to broadcast their games in 2026.
The Nationals, as I noted here last month, have also joined the group of teams with rights reverting to MLB for this year.
Monday, six more teams joined that group:
Main Street Sports Group, operator of the FanDuel Sports Network RSNs, has reached the end of the line with its Major League Baseball partners.
The nine Major League Baseball teams who were under contract with Main Street Sports Group have officially left the company, according to Tom Friend of Sports Business Journal. Earlier Monday, John Ourand of Puck reported on social media that six of the nine teams — the Brewers, Cardinals, Marlins, Rays, Reds and Royals — were leaving Main Street for the MLB in-house production arm, with the Angels, Braves and Tigers said to be undecided.
Three of those teams — the Cardinals, Brewers and Royals — made announcements Monday. Here’s the Cardinals announcement, here’s the one from the Brewers, and here’s the one from the Royals.
I would expect announcements from the Marlins, Reds and Rays soon, if not today. For the other three, from the Sports Media watch article:
As for the other teams, the next step was not entirely clear. While Ourand reported that at least six teams are moving their rights in-house, Friend was less definitive, reporting that eight — the aforementioned six, plus the Tigers and Angels — would shift their rights either to MLB “or alternative platforms,” with Victory+ and Kiswe among possibilities.
At least one of those teams, the Tigers, would seem to be leaning toward MLB, as Friend reported that its ownership group is “expected” to move both the Tigers and NHL Red Wings under the MLB Media umbrella. (MLB already handles production of the NHL Network.)
The Braves, per Friend, are expected to follow in the footsteps of the Rangers and create their own RSN.
Thus, close to half the league will have local TV rights controlled by MLB. As you’ll recall, Commissioner Rob Manfred would eventually like to have all local TV rights in-house. The theory is that if MLB could sell local and national rights together, rights fees could be higher. Whether that’s true remains to be seen.
There’s another issue with these rights reverting to the league and going mostly to streaming (though in markets where this has happened, a regional cable/satellite deal is usually struck). Travis Sawchik explains at MLB.com:
For the clubs that lost their RSN deals, the broadcast deals replacing them have, on average, paid out about 50% of what clubs had received from their former cable deals. Local TV revenue matters more to MLB clubs than any other major sport.
Well, obviously that matters. If a team is getting only about half what they used to receive via their RSN deal, that’s clearly going to cut into the amount they have available for player payroll.
Thus, as you can imagine, this might be one of the driving forces behind some owners pushing for a salary cap. Here are some thoughts about that from Darragh McDonald at MLB Trade Rumors:
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.
As always, we await developments.