Tag: MLB streaming

Notes: Diamond’s plan approved, MLBPA licensing change, Rays have 2025 home

Diamond isn’t going anywhere for the next few years, but the Rays are.

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Thanks to the judge’s decision on Thursday, Diamond will emerge from bankruptcy court with a plan to keep their regional sports broadcasting business going. There are quite a few details to go over, with more to come, but I’d like a little more time to mull over What It All Means before diving into all of that. So, today, let’s just look at some basics.

Diamond will continue to broadcast seven MLB teams, far fewer than it used to, and all on deals that were restructured to varying degrees. The Cardinals, for instance, worked out a new deal, but will see about a 25 percent drop in annual revenue compared to where they were before. Part of that likely had to do with their severe drop in viewership over the past couple of seasons, though, we’ve already discussed one solution for that. The Braves stayed on the same deal, but granted streaming rights to Diamond. The Royals could still rejoin Diamond, but at this point the two sides are still negotiating.

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Diamond loses more teams, what’s next

Three more teams leave Diamond for a MLB-controlled game broadcasts.

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On Tuesday morning, Baseball Prospectus published a feature of mine on the Diamond bankruptcy proceedings, and what they meant for the coming MLB offseason. As discussed last month, MLB already pointed out that the trajectory of the bankruptcy saga means impacted teams won’t be able to plan their budgets for the 2025 season, and the addition of another couple of teams — and the threat of more joining them — meant that we were going to be in for another quiet offseason.

On Tuesday afternoon, it was announced that three more teams whose deals with Diamond had been dropped would not seek to renegotiate with the regional sports network… network… and would instead work through MLB to broadcast its games. The league already did this in 2024 with the Diamondbacks, Rockies, and Padres, and they’ll now be joined by the Guardians, Brewers, and Twins. (The Rangers have also separated from Diamond, but they’re going to peddle their wares on their own, without MLB handling things, so they aren’t part of this conversation.)

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Notes: MLB/Roku streaming deal, White Sox still bad

MLB might have a new streaming partner soon, and Jerry Reinsdorf’s White Sox are certainly made in his image

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According to The Athletic, Major League Baseball might be leaving Peacock behind when that deal is up, and moving over to Roku for streaming Sunday morning baseball games. It’s not that Peacock is uninterested in maintaining their relationship with MLB, so much as, per Andrew Marchand, they were willing to do so for one-third the value of the current deal, which pays $30 million annually.

Now, exactly which service MLB ends up with isn’t of much concern, but the thing to wonder about here is what Roku will be willing to pay to pry the league’s Sunday morning games away from Peacock. If there is no other competitor for the services, then sure, maybe Peacock gets away with offering less than last time, because MLB’s choice is then $10 million per year or nothing. With Roku involved, though, maybe Peacock bumps their offer up, or, in order to get their foot in the door in this realm, Roku is happy to surpass any offer coming from Peacock in order to be the most attractive option. Which could in turn mean MLB is (1) finding new partners to increase their revenue or (2) finding new partners in order to maintain their current level of revenue. Whether it’s the first or second thing depends a lot on how everything shakes down with Diamond and MLB’s eventual streaming-heavy future.

Continue reading “Notes: MLB/Roku streaming deal, White Sox still bad”