Sixty years ago, baseball commissioner Ford Frick received a telegram from a Wisconsin congressman. Rep. Henry Royce is concerned that the Milwaukee Braves will defect to Atlanta for a more lucrative television deal and has proposed a solution: If all MLB teams shared their television rights , then the Warriors may stay.
According to the Associated Press, Frick responded in the summer of 1964 that “…a plan to centralize all television revenues is not currently feasible or acceptable” but “is worthy of future consideration.”
Now, in 2024, that conversation has arrived. Commissioner Rob Manfred and some of the sport’s owners are talking more seriously than ever about nationalizing baseball’s television rights. Not because of relocation, but because of cord-cutting, the failure of some traditional regional sports networks and the simultaneous battle for streaming supremacy waged by Netflix, Amazon and other streamers, sports leagues and rights holders are in a mess of reforms.
Some baseball owners and executives, mostly from smaller markets, believe that the best way to increase media revenue in the long term is to centralize deals and base all 30 teams’ regular-season broadcasts as a string. Streaming packages for sale. Others in the game, especially the teams that make the most money, are vehemently opposed to giving up their rights.
The barriers to such a change are significant, but even the fact that the change is being considered is noteworthy. The end of baseball’s local media rights would be one of the most sweeping changes imaginable in the tumultuous world of sports television. Not surprisingly, this possibility is also controversial.
“As the local media situation evolves, we will continue to evaluate the best model moving forward,” Manfred said in a statement. Competitor. “Our course of action will be decided by the club, who according to our charter are the final decision-makers.”
While MLB has long arranged various national media deals — including with networks like FOX and TBS during the postseason and with ESPN for Sunday night games during the regular season — individual teams have always controlled the majority. regular season inventory, as well as their selection of TV stations to partner with in their domestic markets. (The central office already controls each team’s “out-of-market” rights, which is why fans in New York can sign up for MLB.tv and watch any game that isn’t the Mets or Yankees.)
Abolishing local rights could remove many of the blackout restrictions that frustrate fans. But not all clubs believe Manfred’s office can make better use of the rights than they could alone.
The most contentious issue, however, is the dollar. Regardless of how the commissioner distributes the power, the question is: How is the revenue distributed, equally or otherwise? According to Forbes, the rights fee the New York Yankees will receive in 2022 is estimated at $143 million, much higher than teams such as the Colorado Rockies, which received $57 million in the same year. Ultimately, this will be a rekindling of baseball’s classic drama “Big Market vs. Small Market.”
“Everything about the future is on the table because it’s so unknown,” Sam Kennedy, president of the big-market Boston Red Sox, said during spring training. “You see, there are always going to be issues when the big market team has a different perspective than the small market team. Ultimately, the greater good of the industry is what we have to focus on.
A new era in sports broadcasting has just begun, and changes are happening quickly. On Wednesday, Netflix and the NFL announced that the streamer will air new Christmas games. Netflix pays about $75 million per game.
The other three major U.S. men’s sports leagues, MLB, the NBA and the NHL, argued in court on Wednesday that one of their most important broadcast partners, Diamond Sports Group, is reeling from bankruptcy and shipping disputes. Company Comcast. This month, Comcast’s roughly 13.6 million TV customers were unable to watch programming from more than a dozen Major League Baseball teams on Diamond’s Bally-branded channels.
Diamond Sports Group’s bankruptcy has been an ongoing issue for Major League Baseball. (David Burdine/Getty Images)
Then on Thursday, Fox, Warner Bros. Discovery Channel and Hulu announced the name of their upcoming sports show: “venu.”
The prospect of huge payouts from streaming companies is naturally attractive in the baseball world. Traditionally, regional sports networks invest significant amounts of money up front in teams. Streamers may behave differently, preferring a risk-reward model—the more people watch the content, the more money they pay. But in the long term, as streamers jostle for position, Manfred can bet that Amazon and its ilk will pay more for fragmented content than traditional RSNs currently pay.
The core of the discussion, then, is really whether baseball can thrive as a “national” sport. Ironically, this national pastime is often viewed as a local game.
“Like almost everything in American life, it’s all about money,” former baseball commissioner Faye Vincent said in a phone interview. “The money is skewed very heavily locally. You know, if you live in New York and try to get yourself interested in a game from Seattle to San Diego or wherever — it’s not going to work.
MLB just sold a set of Sunday morning games to Roku, Competitor The cost reported Thursday was $10 million per year. Previously, Peacock paid $30 million per season for the same package. Roku, unlike Peacock, does not require a paid subscription, but the reduction in MLB fees still frustrates some officials.
“It just goes to show that there is no national package,” one sports executive said candidly, speaking on condition of anonymity. “People just want to pay for a quality team.”
One sport has long thrived under a national rights model: the National Football League. By the time Frick made his comments in 1964, the NFL as a whole was already negotiating a trade.
But sports were played in different places then, as they are now. Compared to baseball’s nightly pace, the weekly NFL schedule has always been much less intense.
“Early local football television contracts simply didn’t have that much value because of the small inventory,” said James Walker, professor emeritus of communications at St. Xavier University in Chicago and who has written books on the history of baseball broadcasting. “This means that (football) teams are closer together when it comes to setting television policies. The concept of large-market teams and small-market teams has a different meaning in the NFL than it does in Major League Baseball.
The nationalization of football rights is often attributed to sports commissioner giant Pete Rozelle, who took office in 1960. It’s also worth keeping an eye on this goal.
With Manfred scheduled to retire in 2029, whether Manfred wants to be remembered as baseball’s Rozelle or Bell is one of the more interesting questions. one.
Manfred’s mission may be simple: Make the most money in the most certain way possible, whether by jumping headlong into the local media business or outsourcing it, as has long been the norm. But any substantial change would require him to lock up 30 bosses, and changes to the power structure may be a bridge too far.
“In baseball, it’s difficult for the commissioner to get the owners to work for the collective good,” Walker said. “At this stage, it’s not impossible that the Yankees would suddenly agree to pool their local rights in some shared configuration.
“But that basically means you have to find a way to get the Yankees what they think is fair compensation. And you’re going against the grain. If you go back to the radio era, you’re actually talking about 90 years of history.
The existing contracts between teams and regional sports networks are a huge dilemma. Some teams have agreements with RSN that last into the 2030s. These deals typically promise exclusivity to RSNs so MLB can’t turn around and bundle games together for simulcasts.
So even if teams agreed to nationalize local rights tomorrow and transfer current deals to the league office, MLB would have to wait until some rights expire before they can use them in new ways — or else have to do something else. Ways to negotiate an early end to those deals. For example, the Dodgers’ television contract runs through 2038.
The league may also have to negotiate changes with the players union, since the distribution of revenue among teams is collectively bargained for. This means that the next CBA negotiations in 2026 may make these problems more serious. MLB declined to comment.
There are different theories about where baseball, or any sport, is headed. Perhaps greater revenue lies in developing packages grouped by market rather than by sport: New York packages across different leagues, etc.
A three-quarters vote usually allows owners to amend the sport’s charter. But if there is not 100% support for changing the copyright settings, it could put MLB in a dangerous situation. If any owner thinks the league improperly assumed something of value, lawsuits could fly.
One subtle difference: MLB could launch some kind of smaller, national streaming package that might include half its teams without changing its actual rights system. Today, some teams do not have exclusive agreements with RSN, which would allow them to join the league immediately. Manfred has expressed interest in doing so as early as 2025, but he doesn’t have enough of a team to put together at this point For a viable product. However, this could change later this year if Diamond Sports Group fails to emerge from bankruptcy.
Asked in February if the idea of giving up local rights would have been unthinkable just a few years ago, Kennedy said, “The world is changing rapidly.”
“Consumers need to be able to quickly access our products, our games, anytime, anywhere,” Kennedy said. “We can’t make things difficult.”
(Top photo of Manfred: Mike Carlson/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
