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Alden Gonzalez
multiple authors
Six teams officially left their regional sports network, Main Street Sports, and joined Major League Baseball on Monday, essentially voiding their local-media contracts.
milwaukee brewers, miami marlins, kansas city royals, St. Louis Cardinals, cincinnati reds And tampa bay rays They’ve decided they’ll partner with MLB to produce their games for the 2026 season and beyond, as first reported by The Puck’s John Aurand.
atlanta braves, Los Angeles Angels And detroit tigersThe remaining baseball teams in Main Street Sports’ portfolio have not yet announced their plans, although a report from Sports Business Journal states that the Angels and Tigers will also join MLB. In a statement, the Braves said they are “well on our way toward ushering in a new era in Braves broadcasting,” adding that they would “share our path forward in the coming weeks.”
On January 8, all nine of Main Street Sports’ baseball teams terminated their contracts as the company struggled to find a buyer amid more financial turmoil – just a year after emerging from a lengthy bankruptcy proceeding. Those teams promised to continue negotiations with the company, but with spring training approaching, they gave themselves until the end of the month to resolve their situations. The departure signals that the RSN provider may be moving toward liquidation, although previous reports said it would continue to broadcast NBA and NHL games until the end of those leagues’ seasons.
Main Street, which broadcasts its games under the name FanDuel Sports, started the year with 29 NBA, NHL and MLB teams in its portfolio.
“FanDuel Sports Network continues to broadcast NBA and NHL games and we appreciate the league’s participation in our ongoing discussions on our plans going forward,” a spokesperson for Main Street Sports wrote in a statement. “We appreciate the relationships we have had with these MLB partners and their fans over many years, and we wish them the best.”
MLB – which hopes to acquire local rights to all 30 of its teams by the end of 2028 and sell them as a national package, a process that would help eliminate blackouts – also has the rights to Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, cleveland patron, colorado rockies, minnesota twins, seattle mariners And Washington Nationals.
Two years ago, MLB established a local-media department to handle RSN turmoil in the wake of rampant cord-cutting rates across the country. Under that scenario, MLB broadcasts games, negotiates cable and satellite distribution agreements, generates advertising revenue, and makes local streaming available through MLB.TV – owned by ESPN under a new media rights agreement – for teams that opt out of their local media contracts.
However, this arrangement doesn’t come close to matching the value generated from traditional cable deals, which account for 20% to 30% of a team’s revenue and are a source of fixed, reliable income. The potential loss of that revenue for the nine additional teams could have a major impact on spending in the near future, further exacerbating payroll-inequality concerns as the linear cable model continues to decline.
In 2024, MLB and the MLB Players Association agreed to use some of the money generated from the luxury tax overage to help fund teams, which racked up $15 million in local-media losses. However, this was only a one-time incident. This was only a one-time event, although seven of the nine teams that could lose their Main Street sports deals – all except the Angels and Braves – would have received revenue sharing and could have been eligible for a portion of the luxury-tax payment, which totaled about $400 million for the 2025 season.
Main Street was once Diamond Sports Group, a subsidiary of Sinclair, which borrowed nearly $9 billion to buy 21 regional channels from Fox, causing it to go bankrupt in March 2023. Twenty-two months later – after numerous missed payments, constant resentment, bitter court battles, and a three-month period in which Comcast shut down its channels – the company emerged from bankruptcy.
By January 2, 2025, the company had secured a new naming rights deal, retained a strong portfolio across three leagues and signed a commercial deal with Amazon. There was hope for continued operation – but that could not last even a full year. Sports Business Journal reported in late December that Main Street Sports had missed payments to the Cardinals and was making a last-ditch offer for sale to streaming and entertainment platform DAZN in a bid to save its business.
That deal with DAZN ultimately fell apart. More payments were then missed, prompting all MLB teams to abandon their previous deals. It appears that no other investors have come forward.
Main Street Sports currently holds the local rights to the NBA. atlanta hawks, charlotte hornets, Miami Heat, oklahoma city thunder, cleveland cavaliers, Indiana Pacers, detroit pistons, minnesota timberwolves, orlando magic, milwaukee bucks, San Antonio Spurs, LA Clippers And memphis grizzlies. in the nhl, minnesota wild, Nashville Predators, detroit red wings, Los Angeles Kings, carolina storm, columbus blue jackets And st louis blues.
