[Drellich] News: MLB is building toward a new TV future. Rob Manfred wants the league to take control of local TV rights so MLB can launch new blackout free, national packages.

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  4. If Mannfred is somehow able to make national packages that eliminate blackouts and are at least a bit affordable, the public opinion on him would completely flip

  6. The article says that MLB is going to try and convince teams to share TV revenue by letting them keep more of other revenue they are currently sharing. Like sponsorships, ticket sales, merch.

  9. Ending blackouts would single handedly secure Manfred’s legacy as commish as a net positive one. Hope he comes thru.

  12. Could this be the first (of several) steps towards a salary cap (and floor)?

    MLB local (23%) & national (26%) TV revenues equals about 49% of all revenue.

    For comparison, two other sports leagues that have better revenue sharing and salary caps:
    NBA local (13%) & national (40%).
    NFL local (1%) & national (64%).

  13. Fans, understandably, are going to go “Yes, finally this is so obvious! Why didn’t they do this before!” without understanding why it took so long for this to happen and why it probably is going to be an absolute mess to get right.

    Baseball has been propped up for almost three decades now on RSN money. Outside of ticket sales, its the biggest piece of revenue they take in. RSNs made buckets of money because if you had cable, your subscription fee went towards the RSN whether you watched every game or zero games. You had non-baseball fans financially subsidizing these tv deals.

    Now these non-fans who were giving you money are going away because of the whole breakdown of the cable tv system and MLB is stuck trying to figure out how you make the same out amount of TV money now that people who literally never watched your product are no longer paying for it.

    This is basically impossible to reconcile.

    Especially because there are some teams, such as the Yankees and Dodgers, who have so many fans and high ratings their tv rights are infinitely more valuable than the rights of the Marlins or Reds. Why the fuck would they ever agree to an equal split of a national package? They are going to want uneven cuts of any package and frankly, they should. They bring in more fans and ratings.

    I am cribbing from Joe Sheehan, a fantastic baseball writer whose newsletter I highly recommend, who said “The Yankees need opponents, they don’t need 29 of them” if Manfred wants to bundle all the rights you are forcing the high revenue teams to ask if they really need 30 MLB teams. Perhaps 24 would result in a better split while losing little value, TV deal wise.

    TLDR: We are gonna have a crazy labor fight/lockout as MLB tries to navigate a post RSN world while having a three way fight between players, high revenue teams and low revenue teams.

  14. All I know is I pay for cable and only watch one station which drives me crazy. Literally have 200 other channels at my disposal and couldn’t care less.

  20. If you read the article it’s kinda crazy how Manfred is envisioning this as well as the potential fallout:

    -to be clear, he does *not* want to put a majority of games under some vertically integrated, league owned “MLB+” broadcast. While some games would be taken care of by the league directly he wants to take the majority of games and “cut them up into packages and sell them, as many of them as possible, nationally, and then have a plan to deal with what’s left over.” Whether or not you’d need a subscription for every single platform that takes a chunk of games is TBD, but you can imagine how it is for the NBA to get a picture (hint: you do).

    -He needs owners to buy-in by giving up the entirety of their local revenue, not just 48% like revenue-sharing is handled now.

    -While he will have 2/3rds of local broadcast rights by 2028 to use as negotiating power, most of the big market teams that actually have very profitable local TV deals are not part of that portfolio. Why would they give up 52% of their direct income then? The article suggests the owners would pursue a salary cap as a trade-off, which would most likely lead to a lockout because the player-union will need to agree.

    While we all dream of a blackout-free MLB, the whole thing is going to by way more complicated than most people seem to realize. It’s a shame too, since the RSN model may have worked if they didn’t refuse to adopt local streaming options so their own fans wouldn’t be blacked out. Now after the Diamond/Bally fiasco it’s a bit too late for that, and MLB is going to work in its own best interest by splicing most games across a number of national broadcast options that can be accessed in one place on the app (so long as you have a subscription to every single external streaming platform.)

  21. You know I’ve said a lot of shit about Manfred being a terrible commissioner. But if he pulls this off and gets rid of the blackouts I’ll take it all back

  22. Given how MLB always treats the Blue Jays as an afterthought, I pretty much guarantee they will screw us somehow. Though, as anyone in Canada already knows, it’s Rogers that is most likely to take advantage of any change to screw the fans.

    Fun fact: When MLB.tv first launched, Paul Beeston negotiated a deal that allowed all Jays fans in Canada to watch Toronto games on the service without blackouts. That survived until 2020 when, you guessed it, Rogers nixed the idea in favour of its own streaming service.

  23. I am from Iowa. If blackouts die, I will actually be able to legally watch baseball again. I would like that.

  24. Better access to the games is great, but I don’t want to lose my local announcers. I watch about 130 Astros broadcasts a year in part because they know a lot about the team. If we end up with an assortment of people like Smoltz, A-Rod or Joe Buck doing every game, that number is going to go down a lot. Probably just follow the box score more often.

  26. I hope it’s included in cable packages. Since I’m no longer in the region, I tend to watch Braves games on my ~~Bally~~ Fanduel Sports Network app or the ~~Bally~~ Fanduel Sports Network website by using my parents’ cable login. I don’t want to pay more, when that’s so convenient.

  31. Whoa whoa now. And actually act like a league instead of a collection of independent teams? Wtf?

    Next thing you know they’ll implement a hard salary cap and floor, and baseball may actually feel like a proper league again.

  32. Just graduate the top 8 teams by spending and let them play in some super league and let the other 24 share money and compete in a league with a floor and cap. Would at least give teams hope they can compete.

  33. The MLS model of broadcasting for the most part has been an overwhelming success, so I can see MLB copying that format and making some tweaks.

    If he pulls it off it might be the best thing he’s ever done.

  34. Ok, so how does this work (I do not have MLB TV)? If I were to sign up to watch the Mets, will I get Gary, Keith and Ronny or does MLB TV have its own announcers?

  36. Ending blackouts would be great

    Does this say anything about local broadcasts tho… I don’t wanna lose GKR pls

  39. While I love the idea, I believe the Dodgers TV deal with Spectrum is worth billions on its own. No way they’re giving that up. (Though I’d be all for ending blackouts as I live 2 1/2 hours away from the Stadium)

  40. I literally stopped watching baseball because it was so hard to follow. If you want me to watch… let me watch.

  41. Depends on how it’s done. As long as they don’t go the MLS route of killing off local broadcasts + making it so you have to purchase a streaming subscription on top of your league pass (gotta have Apple Tv + MLS Season pass) then this would be legit. 

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