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Alden Gonzalez
In response to more financial instability from their regional sports network operator, and in hopes of providing themselves some much-needed flexibility, nine Major League Baseball teams have terminated their contracts with Main Street Sports Group, sources told ESPN on Thursday.
Main Street, which holds 29 NBA, NHL and MLB teams in its portfolio and broadcasts their games under the name FanDuel Sports, emerged from a lengthy bankruptcy proceeding in early 2025 but finds itself again in deep financial trouble. A recent report from Sports Business Journal stated that the company will be dissolved at the end of the current NBA and NHL seasons if it does not make a sale to another platform.
That state of flux inspired all nine MLB teams under the portfolio – the atlanta braves, cincinnati reds, detroit tigers, kansas city royals, Los Angeles Angels, miami marlins, milwaukee brewers, St. Louis Cardinals And tampa bay rays – To end its original deal with Main Street.
Sources said all of those teams could return to the RSN operator if another buyer is found and their outlook for the 2026 season improves; However, opting out now gives those teams the flexibility to explore other options in the meantime, including the possibility of joining MLB. It also protects the company if it goes through another bankruptcy, although a Main Street source recently called that unlikely.
In a statement, a Main Street spokesperson wrote: “We remain in active conversations with all of our MLB team partners regarding the potentially revised terms of our agreements moving forward.”
MLB currently owns the rights to Arizona Diamondbacks, San Diego Padres, cleveland patron, colorado rockies, minnesota twins And seattle marinerswith Washington Nationals Expect that to be part of the mix this season as well. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday that the league has the ability to dispense with any additional teams it chooses to come on board.
“No matter what happens, whether it’s Main Street, a third party or MLB media, the fans are going to have the game,” Manfred told The Associated Press at a news conference, pledging 250,000 volunteer hours to support charitable organizations ahead of the United States’ 250th anniversary.
Under the local-media department established in response to the RSN turmoil two years ago, 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 especially valuable because they are a source of fixed, reliable income. The potential loss of that revenue for nine additional teams could have a major impact on spending this offseason, further exacerbating payroll inequity 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, that was only a one-time thing.
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 – and that didn’t even last 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.
Sources said more payments have since been missed. And the SBJ reported late Wednesday that Main Street’s negotiations with DAZN are “almost over” after the company demanded that teams take massive pay cuts in new rights contracts.
The nine MLB teams that remained with Main Street Sports after emerging from bankruptcy signed new deals. However, according to a source, neither of those deals extend beyond 2028, which is in line with MLB’s hopes of bringing all 30 teams under one national umbrella by then.
