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You can’t blame Major League Baseball officials if they’re early-counting their loot from the post-season. The viewership numbers are jumping, and they have every chance to go higher.
Figures released at the start of this week told the story. Through the division series round, MLB’s playoff viewership was up 18% over last year, at an average of 3.3 million per game. The division series games themselves pulled in 3.56 million viewers on average, a 14% bump over 2023.
There were some gaudy victories. The deciding game of the NLDS between the Padres and Dodgers last Friday was the most-watched division series broadcast since 2017, with an average of 7.5 million viewers. Even Game 5 of the ALDS, between relative lesser lights Detroit and Cleveland and spot-switched from prime time to daytime to avoid a weather issue, delivered TBS its most-watched division series matchup in a day-game slot in 17 years.
The AL and NL championships, meanwhile, involve big-market draws: Mets, Dodgers, Yankees. MLB is already assured of having either the New York or Los Angeles TV market involved in the World Series, and maybe both. It’s going to be a record payout — good news for the players, too, since they get a cut of that post-season revenue.
So why isn’t everybody smiling?
For the answer, look back to the news from earlier this month — but don’t look too long. It’s a little confusing, a lot tedious and, in important ways, still uncertain. The short story is that a nice post-season won’t solve MLB’s larger issues when it comes to broadcasting deals, revenue, and the viability of many of its markets.
The collapse of regional sports networks lies at the heart of this. The slow disintegration of Diamond Sports Group, which has been in Chapter 11 bankruptcy for the better part of two years, is only the most conspicuous example — but it matters, and quite a bit.
Diamond is the operator of Bally Sports channels, and on Oct. 2 the company said in court that as part of its reorganization, it’ll drop its broadcasting rights deals with 11 of the 12 Major League teams it currently has.
That’s massive, even if it’s a little premature. So far, Diamond has committed to retaining only the Atlanta Braves. It terminated its contracts with the Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays, and said it’s prepared to move forward without retaining the rights to nine other franchises: the Los Angeles Angels, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Milwaukee Brewers, Cleveland Guardians, Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers.
The language of the filing indicates that deals might still be struck with some of the franchises, but apparently at Diamond’s whim and likely with a major financial haircut taken by the teams. That makes everybody nervous, and it’s one reason — of many — that MLB has called into question Diamond’s long-term viability and complained about the lack of clarity around the company’s plans.
(If you’re not in a Bally Sports market, that doesn’t mean you should rest easy. The cord-cutting among former cable subscribers that is driving this is a national trend. The fact that, say, an NBC Regional Sports network is your local carrier does not insulate you from future concern.)
Why should anyone care? Two reasons. First, for fans of one of the teams or those living in the affected markets, it’s not even clear where to find games for 2025. And second, especially for real fans, how much a franchise gets paid for its local broadcast rights significantly determines how much operating income it has — and how much it can (or will) spend on payroll.
A system that keeps smaller broadcast markets in non-competitive revenue situations is bad for the league and its customers. You don’t need a salary cap to fix that, but you do need broadcast packages that make money for both the teams and their partners.
MLB has already announced that it will take over the broadcasts for Cleveland, Milwaukee and Minnesota next season, adding those markets to MLB Productions’ existing setups in San Diego, Arizona and Colorado. Texas could join that group, although the Rangers might also try to set up their own deal with local carriers.
Everybody else is in the dark, wondering if A.) their local Bally Sports deals will yet be revived and B.) how much less those deals will be worth than they were in the past. The timeline is whenever. That is a brutal way to do business.
MLB doesn’t yet have enough teams under its production wing to offer any sort of compelling national streaming package. At the same time, the thought of waiting for Diamond to figure things out is distressing, seeing as Diamond hasn’t come close to doing so for years.
This is one case in which the league just doesn’t have control, which ought to explain why the folks at the top are happy to distract themselves with their playoff ratings bounty. Enjoy that. The hard work comes after.
