With many regional sports networks in precarious positions, a number of teams have imposed payroll constraints this offseason to compensate for the less certain revenue streams. It’s thus worth identifying where all 30 clubs sit in terms of their local broadcasting picture.
[Related: Latest On Diamond Sports Group Bankruptcy]
A caveat: teams don’t announce the terms of their broadcasting contracts. Many clubs’ revenues for 2023 haven’t been reported. Last March, Mike Ozanian and Justin Teitelbaum of Forbes listed approximate 2022 local broadcasting sums for every team other than the Blue Jays. In cases where MLBTR was unable to find reported figures for last year or the upcoming season, we’re referencing that Forbes report for ’22 revenues. Revenue figures cited are for local broadcasting contracts only.
- Angels: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. Expected ’23 revenues around $125MM (reported by Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times in February ’23).
- Astros: Formed joint venture with NBA’s Rockets to run Space City Home Network beginning in 2024. Previous RSN deal with AT&T SportsNet Southwest had paid $73MM in ’23 (reported by David Barron of the Houston Chronicle in November ’23).
- Athletics: RSN deal with NBC Sports California. Projected ’24 revenue: approximately $70MM (reported by Jeff Passan of ESPN in January ’24). Contract expires once A’s leave the Bay Area.
- Blue Jays: Owned by Rogers Communications, which distributes games via Sportsnet. All broadcast revenues unreported.
- Braves: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. Expected ’23 revenues north of $100MM (reported by Tim Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in November ’21).
- Brewers: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $33MM
- Cardinals: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. ’24 revenue expected to be around $73MM (reported by Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in January ’24)
- Cubs: Owners of Marquee Sports Network. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $99MM
- Diamondbacks: No RSN contract. Previous deal, which had paid $68MM in 2022, dropped by Diamond Sports Group in June ’23. MLB handling in-market broadcasting in 2024.
- Dodgers: Co-owners of Spectrum SportsNet LA. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $196MM.
- Giants: RSN/partial ownership deal with NBC Sports Bay Area. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $92MM.
- Guardians: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group being renegotiated at a lower price. ’23 revenue: $55MM (reported by Paul Hoynes of Cleveland.com in November ’23).
- Mariners: Assumed full ownership of ROOT Sports Northwest beginning in 2024. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $100MM.
- Marlins: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $49MM.
- Mets: RSN deal with SNY. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $88MM.
- Nationals: Co-owners of Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $61MM.*
- Orioles: Co-owners of Mid-Atlantic Sports Network. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $61MM.*
- Padres: No RSN contract. Previous deal, which had paid $47MM in 2022, dropped by Diamond Sports Group in May ’23. MLB handling in-market broadcasting in 2024.
- Phillies: RSN deal with NBC Sports Philadelphia. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $125MM.
- Pirates: Formed joint venture with NHL’s Penguins to operate SportsNet Pittsburgh beginning in 2024. Previous RSN deal with AT&T SportsNet paid roughly $50-60MM annually (reported by Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in December ’23).
- Rangers: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group being renegotiated at a lower price. Deal has paid $111MM annually to this point (reported by Evan Grant of the Dallas Morning News in January ’24).
- Rays: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $56MM.
- Red Sox: Co-owners of New England Sports Network. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $97MM.
- Reds: RSN/partial ownership deal with Diamond Sports Group pays roughly $60MM annually (reported by Gordon Wittenmyer of the Cincinnati Enquirer in December ’23).
- Rockies: No RSN contract. Previous deal dropped by AT&T SportsNet Rocky Mountain after 2023. MLB expected to handle in-market broadcasting in 2024. Previous deal paid roughly $57MM in ’23 (reported by Patrick Saunders of the Denver Post in January ’24).
- Royals: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $45MM.
- Tigers: RSN deal with Diamond Sports Group.’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $60MM.
- Twins: No current RSN contract. Previous deal with Diamond Sports Group, which expired after 2023 season, paid $54MM in ’23 (reported by Phil Miller of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune in January ’24). Twins could renegotiate new deal with Diamond.
- White Sox: RSN deal with NBC Sports Chicago. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $60MM.
- Yankees: Co-owners of YES Network. ’23 figure unreported; ’22 revenue: $143MM.
* The Orioles and Nationals jointly own MASN, with the Orioles holding a majority stake. The sides receive equal rights fees but have been embroiled in a longstanding legal dispute about revenue calculation, which happens every five years under the terms of their contract.
Good reporting Anthony
Read this in an old lady voice assuming norcalblue is Anthony’s mother…
Awesome post
People should learn about history.one of the crazy things when radio started the difference between the American League and National League in the 1930s was that AL teams did not broadcast the games as it was thought that it would hurt the gate/attendance. Interesting that almost each big league town had 2 teams. So we move to the 1980s and 90s Bud Selig thought too many people would not show up to games in person because they sat at home watching the Cubs and Braves on TV. So he banned those teams from national broadcasts. He was able to get increased money out of national broadcasters like Fox and ESPN so we could all enjoy baseball like Red Sox vs Yankees even if you don’t care about them. Now as local TV revenue starts to fall what will happen? Seems people don’t want to pay $20 a month or $150 a season and think it should be free. Another weird history fact it people used to be able to bring in BEER to games. Can you imaging bringing a 6 pack instead of paying for an $18 Beer Bat or $10 cup? In Milwaukee where they lead the league in attendance in the 1950s it was normal behavior until about 1961 or 1962 when the policy changed and fans were not too pleased. But they adjusted . So it will be interesting to see how baseball as a business changes with television or streaming. And to think I thought it was crazy back in 2012 that people would watch TV on a cell phone.
“Can you imagine bringing a 6-pack instead of paying $18 for a beer bat…”
Why are people so obsessed with beer?
Can you imagine how much money people would save, how much healthier they would be, and how much less stupidity and fighting there would be in the stands if they simply didn’t swill beer like idiotic college kids?
And get off my grass.
While shaking fist at clouds.
@Lars MacDonald: Great point.
Smoking is much preferable to drinking beer.
People can enjoy the ballpark ambiance and the game without being obnoxiously drunk and doing stupid things.
And bonus: Nobody can stop you from bringing in a couple of joints and make you pay ballpark prices, lol.
Although teams in certain states might try to get dispensary licenses for their stadiums.
I also prefer cocaine
Bet you’re fun at parties. @blue baron
A different level involving addiction.
Ah yes but they would be too stoned to duck out of the way of line drive foul ball coming their way.
@Phree4u: Not particularly, but if you got invited, you’d have known that.
Are you the old lady in the Airplane! movie?
And nice user name.
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today, I
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one
@Wolf Hoffman: Nice song, but how is it relevant here?
People were already too stoned on their cell phones to duck so MLB put up nets to protect them.
Why are you so obsessed with what other people choose to consume?
Most of us are happy to pay the $150 for MLB TV. The issue is that they black out your home team. I’m a Yankees fan that lives in the Seattle area, so I can watch every game except when they play the Mariners. I have no issue with paying for the games I want to watch. The issue is having to buy cable and subscribe to 50 home shopping networks and 37 religious channels in order to watch a baseball game. Teams need to separate from cable companies because they are going extinct.
Harry, Both the Diamondbacks and the Padres had over 300,000 subscribers at $19.99 per to a MLB.tv package to see just their team when the season ended. People were willing to pay.
No offense, but when you start your post with “People should learn about history…” you need to follow up with accurate history regarding radio broadcasts. Checking Wikipedia, some AL teams did broadcast their games in the early 1930s, and some NL teams did not. It wasn’t an AL/NL thing at all. You are right in that it was about fearing loss of attendance at the park. Each team was allowed to reach its own policy by 1932. The New York teams (AL and NL) banned broadcasting from their parks in 1932 which lasted until 1938. Also, the two-team cities reached agreements (St.Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston) to not broadcast away games so as not to hurt gate/attendance of the team playing at home (like you were getting at). By 1938 all teams broadcasted their games.
I too, find this extremely informative. Thank you MLBTR for going here- to this topic. It lends a whole lot of perspective to the financial relationships and individual team operations.
Also I see below, where someone posted that the teams cut of the National TV contracts, is in the neighborhood of $60M each.
For teams like the Dbacks & Padres where MLB handles the broadcasting, where do they gain revenue? I know the Padres have been quiet this offseason but the Dbacks have dropped money on a couple of guys
Last year MLB augmented their incomes a little but said at the time that they would not continue doing so beyond that season. So while they got money perhaps similar to what they had before, this year they’d get what the market would pay. It’s not at all clear what that looks like for folks without contracts.
Makes sense. This whole RSN situation is a mess. Hopefully it benefits fans long term tho
Yeah the math doesn’t work at all to produce past revenue totals with MLB-streamed subscription-based services. The good news is it tends to be success-based in real time, unlike in-person gate revenue, so it provides an incentive for teams to try harder to play well. The Dbacks should do pretty well (assuming they’re as good as they were last year), relatively speaking. They also weren’t anywhere near their payroll limit in 2023, due to having so many young players. The bad news is those teams will definitely be operating with a lower payroll limit.
MLB said they would pay 80% of all lost revenue from the RSN’S going under. They never specified for how long. We know from filings in the DSG bankruptcy that the Diamondbacks and Padres got only one check from MLB for the payment DSG defaulted on and that both teams increased TV related revenue in 2023.
If I remember right MLB covered 80% of the deals last year but won’t this year. The Padres still had a channel that they were broadcasting on that was carried by local cable providers. I don’t know how much the providers were paying for that. Then they ran ads and again I don’t know how much money they got from it. But the channel only ran programming for the games and had a graphic up the rest of the time. They should sell infomercial space during that time, but there is probably something preventing that.
On a positive note we no longer have to see commercials about poor Victor with a TBI from the war and his wife who doesn’t have time for his problems, she’s busy with other stuff.
Ahh yes The D-Backs have fallen for that trap where they had a magical year that wasn’t really expected. So now they think 3024 will be a repeat and they will fall down flat on their face and be lucky to reach 500.
They barely reached 500 last year, to be honest. Just got hot at the right time.
@Winslow Leach: So true, and the basis of what I call the last year fallacy, where teams that are successful one year are invariably overrated going into the following one.
Not the only question I have about these numbers. Do they include local broadcasts rights payments? Because if they do, they don’t add up. For instance we know the Dodgers’ media contract with Spectrum pays them an average annually of $325M. So where does last year’s $192M revenue figure come from? Is that additional revenue to the $325M?
All MLB is doing is handling the technical production of the broadcast. The Padres and Diamondbacks still own the broadcast rights and instead of having one contract with an RSN, they now have contracts directly with the cable and satellite companies. Cut out the middle man.
This RSN mess was predictable because the television business model is completely changing and legacy cable content providers like ESPN and others are hemorrhaging viewers. MLB is merely suffering some of the same issues that others in the tv business are having.
Right, but it’s been a slow motion Michael Bay explosion for a decade or more. Why did the wheels come off in 2023 rather than 2021 or 2026? Mostly because Sinclair took a fairly healthy, solvent business, maybe not growing but at least holding its own, and broke it up to make money on the transaction and leave Diamond saddled with a mountain of debt. It was a soulless move to extract cash without concern for the remaining business, its employees or its customers, the sort of thing that gives corporate raiders a bad name. It’s pretty legal, but it was so vile that Sinclair ended up paying back half a billion dollars to try waiving the stink away.
To be fair, the cable model was based on narrow options within each market, making everyone pay for stuff they didn’t necessarily want to fund an artificially high number of choices and allow cable companies to reap huge subscription revenues while doing the absolute minimum in support and investment. As the internet opened up more choices for viewers they began fleeing in droves and the writing was on the wall, albeit somewhat far away. MLB has the duty, in fact has had the job for quite some time, to figure out how to replace these dollars. Individual channels don’t sell as well as bundles, especially when you have to price them high enough to cover costs with fewer viewers. But the old cable product was flawed due to blackouts and fractured sales of games across multiple channels, so Manfred does have ways to make the product better to justify a bit higher price point.
But there is some real fear that they’ll never get back to the billion dollar deals that ESPN and the networks paid in the past, and given that there’s such a mind-boggling gap between individual team revenues while this is breaking down (MIL $33m, LAD $196m from a network they own) there will have to be some serious changes made very soon. Plus there’s a CBA negotiation coming after the 2026 season and this could lead to more trouble at that point.
Don’t worry, Amazon and UAE will always have money to throw around. Especially for sporting events.
Yeah I do wonder if a baseball league will pop up in one of the Arab oil countries, and they’ll start investing in the sport like they have golf and soccer.
Good luck building facilities and getting players to go there for a sport that won’t generate revenues. Those oil cartels won’t subsidize losses forever. Soccer is much more a lucrative global sport than baseball.
Sinclair grossly overpaid, in retrospect, for what appeared to be a “healthy, solvent business.” Cord-cutting accelerated, leaving the business with debt that couldn’t ever be reasonably re-paid.
Prior to the acquisition, regional sports networks were a cash cow. You sometimes get used to trends and project that they will continue forever. Big businesses gamble all the time, and sometimes it turns out to be a losing bet.
@For love of game & Belongs to Reds
I agree that Sinclair and the Saudis care about one thing, money. And don’t really care how they get it. Trust, truth and credibility, they think can be bought.
Sinclair is a nasty outfit so no one should be surprised.
Good points. And tickets to Dodger games are much more expensive than Brewer games as well, so they make twice as much (at least) in gate revenue and concessions. So here are two successful teams with a massive gulf in revenue, and therefore in spending ability, between them. I would hope the whole “these billionaires need to spend more” chorus will take a break and do a little math before baying to the moon about how their team owner doesn’t spend with the Dodgers and Yankees.
However, I would point out that the brewers likely would not be as successful if swapped divisions with say… the diamondbacks? Or the Nationals? Or even into the AL east or west?
Your quality of opponents, who themselves are constrained by their respective comparative lack of revenue situations, plays a role – lesser with the balanced schedule, but still a role all the same.
Oh yeah no doubt. If the Brewers weren’t in one of the central divisions they’d be buried like the Rockies and Marlins and Mariners. They’d be better than the first two, and worse than the latter, but it wouldn’t make a damn bit of difference.
They should re-organize the divisions by market size.
Excellent summary of the situation.
The streamers are starting to shoot themselves in the foot, though. People are finding that, to get the programming they want, they have to subscribe to a bunch of different streaming services. And then they face the same problem they have with cable, on a smaller scale — they have to pay for a bunch of stuff they aren’t interested in, in order to get the few things they want. The streamers are following the cable model and trying to bundle a bunch of stuff, which I think is a mistake.
As for MLB.tv, the stupid blackout rules really hurt their subscriber rates. Teams can pretty much claim any territory they want as their “home” territory, and overlaps are allowed, so you find some areas of the country (like Iowa) where subscribers there are blacked out for five or six teams. And MLB.tv blackouts include away games, something that no other providers do. I know they do this to try to protect the RSNs, but look around — a lot of the RSNs are failing anyway. The owners are going to have to figure out where to go from here.
Diamonds are Forever
” Are forever”…In bankruptcy court, you leave sentiment at the door and nothing is “forever”.
Tell that to death and taxes 🙂
Reporting this aspect of MLB is important due to revenue being the basis of most teams spending. I always find it ignorant when fans expect owners to spend more than their team makes. At the end of the days baseball is a business and while putting a competitive team is good for business, profit is usually paramount regardless of the owner’s net worth.
I agree that it’s important to report these values, but disagree that it’s unreasonable to expect owners to spend more than a team brings in.
I lose money on my house every year – as basically all of us do – BUT I do it, and I’m glad to do it, b/c a) I get the benefit of having a house to live in, and b) almost certainly, at some future date when I sell it, I will make a profit. And I make this work just fine, and I am no freakin’ billionaire (or near-billionaire).
So I think it is perfectly reasonable to think any billionaire owner could lose money on their team every year, b/c a) they get the benefit of owning a pro sports team (and all that comes with that), and b) at some future date when they sell, they have a huge profit coming.
Plus, billionaires always have other streams of income coming in. Investments, other businesses, I don’t know. PLUS, they’re freakin billionaires, so they’d get approved for any loan they ever apply for! They can take out a new loan to pay off the old loan, over and over if they want, like Jeff Bezos does…
Billionaires are not like us, and that is why they own teams and we don’t.
If they want guaranteed profit every single year, I suggest they get a different investment – one that is boring and safe and does not have hundreds of thousands of fans riding on every high and low.
This, of course, is exactly WHY you are no billionaire.
More to the point, if the expectation is that team owners should spend into the red on an annual basis, there would be no interest in owning a team, and therefore team values would plummet, so there would be no capital gains angle either. People want to buy professional sports teams in part because they know someone else will eventually want to buy it from them, and that’s BECAUSE it guarantees healthy annual profits that they can plow into their other investments.
No reason to worry about something like “profits” when the media rights deals can have the $500 million you paid to buy the team soar to your team being valued at $2 billion.
Of course, there’s no reason why anyone NEEDS to follow professional sports of any kind if it bothers them so much.
There’s PLENTY of collegiate and independent leagues for any sport you like that one could watch.
Good luck finding 30 owners. No chance there would be 30 of them prepared to run at a year to year loss. As a Giants fan, I’m grateful for the break even mindset they preach. I think it’s the best a reasonable person could hope for.
This is mind bogglingly… I mean… I can’t.
You “lose money” on your house every month because you make a house payment?
Do you also “lose money” by depositing your paychecks (if you have them) into your bank account?
Then you mystically “gain money” when you pay with your credit card or take a withdrawal from the bank?
I guess it’s a wash when you pay bills because you already lost that money to the bank when you deposited it.
Cash flow, profit/loss, and wealth are entirely different things.
100% correct. The owner’s worth has ZERO impact on the MLB team operations. The owner’s net worth is a cookie-cutter MLBPA line to push a narrative that the owner is simply being cheap — while they KNOW it doesn’t work that way at all and just count on people being obnoxiously stupid and willingly ill-informed to follow along.
Using these figures, the general average is around $80 million. If you review the list, you’ll see that 18 of the 30 teams make less than that. Equal sharing of all TV revenue would drastically impact the Dodgers, Yankees, Phillies and Angels in a negative sense, while greatly benefitting teams like Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Colorado, Minnesota — basically any team under $60 million in local TV revenue. Pittsburgh (where I’m from) figures to make about half of what they were making under AT&T and that was before Comcast announced that their network was moving to the Premium subscription tier ($20 more a month).
If you implemented some type of payroll floor in conjunction with equal TV sharing across the board, teams like the Pirates could and would be forced to sign guys to $20 million AAV type contracts without negatively impacting their bottom line.
To underscore the advantage a team like the Dodgers currently has, the disparity between what they make on local TV vs. a team like the Pirates – the Dodgers can afford 7 more players at $20 million AAV (a roughly 3.5 WAR player) than the Pirates can.
But Pirates, how much if those 7 20m/yr contracts are deferred a couple decades???
Agree. The disparities are a big reason why MLB is now less popular than soccer. The economics are ludicrous. MLB and MLBPA, two blind fools heading for a pit.
These teams will have no problem making money. With expansion on the horizon. Future teams paying billions to join And All these streaming services need content. Making $$$$ will be the least of their worries.
You can see how the Dodgers and Yanks can have higher payrolls than everyone else.
“Higher payrolls than everyone”…When you watch the daily packed, overflow crowds at Chavez Ravine, you can see how the Dodgers can outspend everyone. You have to assume their local TV ratings are similarly strong.
How many fans they attract is only a minor factor. For example in that division, the Rockies and Padres draw really well too. The thing is, Dodger tickets are also much more expensive than most teams’, and their food and concessions are as well. It’s a wealthy metropolitan area, so they can charge more. And no, Dodger ratings aren’t particularly good. They signed a TV contract at the peak of the RSN craziness, and there are reasons it works financially other than straightforward profit and loss (for one thing, they are owned by a hedge fund, so they are merely one part of the business).
How about that, the Dodgers out earned the Yanks. The difference between those two was almost as much as half the teams got as a total payment.
Does anyone know what each team’s cut of the national contracts is?
It was reported that starting in 2022 with new TV contracts teams receive 60.1 million annually.
Thank you..
$72.8MM in 2021 (The Baltimore Banner 12/15/23, Dylan Segelbaum). The figure quoted in the article of $61MM seems to be based on the settlement reached about 12/8/23 between the Orioles and the Nationals for the 2017-2021 time period where each team agreed to take an AVERAGE of $60.81MM dollars for the 5 year time period, or a total of $304.9 for 2017-2021. Please note that 2020 was a shortened season.
As reported in The Baltimore Banner article the actual breakdown for the 5 year period is 2017 ($64.97MM), 2018 ($68.72MM), 2019 ($70.79MM), 2020 ($26.76MM), 2021 ($72.83MM). Note the reduced amount for 2020 – short season.
The Banner attributed this information to Daniel Wallach, a gaming law and sports betting attorney in Hallandale Beach, Florida, and co-founding director of the University of New Hampshire Franklin Pierce School of Law’s Sports Wagering and Integrity Program, reported about the agreement on X, formerly known as Twitter. He’s also a legal analyst for The Athletic.
Why is this a trade rumour?
How is it not? Totally reflects on what a team can or cannot do. It is very good information.
What trade or transaction is rumoured to take place within the context of this article?
This may or may not be good information and these scenarios may or may not affect transactions. However, no rumors are contained within this article on a trade rumour website.
Look at the teams that have no deals (TEX, CLE, MIN) and check out their total FA signings: It’s about one guy, and not top dollar. You don’t think this affects the moves a defending WS champ might want to make? The Twins lost 300 innings of their starting pitching and just signed someone named Matt Bowman as their big move so far. It has a very direct bearing on what they think they can spend, which drives what deals are not being made. The whole market is slow because of it.
I agree that looking at last year’s numbers with all the network fiascos that happened this year can be misleading. Yes there are no rumors in this article, but by looking at the financial numbers, we can have a better understanding of what teams would be willing to spend. If more teams are willing to spend, then there would be more rumors inevitably.
However, the title of the posting makes it pretty clear there would.be no trades rumored…
So, 1) you had to knowing click on it; 2) had to either read or scroll through the whole post; to 3) whine in the comments section.
However, I would point that 1) no less then 30 different ‘transactions’ are mentioned, and, many more than that depending how you count them. Every rights payment to every team is a ‘transaction’, look up the definition of the word.
As for rumors or rumours as you alternate the spelling of, every projected, or assumed deal for past for following years is, in fact, a rumor/rumour. Again, see the definition. Of the word.
Your lack of specificity in your complaint makes you look less intelligent than you intended as you didn’t say ‘player’ anywhere in your complaint.
As for myself, I enjoyed seeing the facts and figures aggregated into one place.
@Randor – I think you are taking it too literally. TV Revenue, free agent signings,
Manager/coach hirings, International draft signings all are technically not trades but they do involve the “trade” of baseball.
Shut up, he explained. (Ring Lardner, 1920)
Allow me to apologize on behalf of MLBTR for this serious indiscretion.
Rumor with that extra ‘u’? Fancy
You must be new to the site. You’re correct. Despite the title, this has always been. more than just a rumors site. When there are no substantiated rumors, Tim fills the void with other information. It’s no different than when they report that “Player X signed with Team Y.” That is a fact, not a rumor. But they still report it. What’s wrong with that?
ATL’s 2023 expected revenue was reported in Nov ’21? I wonder how approximate this figure ~$100M figure is, but certainly more than most expected considering they supposedly reworked the original Time-Warner agreement some years ago, according to McQuirk.
Kudos to compiling all this info, which isn’t readily available.
RSN revenue is contractual. Most of these contracts are multi year (some multi-decade) and the exact number is actually known, more or less precisely outside of inflation adjusters.
These numbers are total revenue, which includes ad revenue and cable company carriage fees. We all know that Diamond is paying a ridiculously low rights fee for the Braves (thanks, AOL-TW). But the flip side is that the Braves are a money-maker for Diamond, which is why Diamond is willing to continue their contract with the Braves.
Articles like these are a symptom of a boring offseason.
This is a huge deal regardless? RSNs are an enormous part of how many of us watch the games.
You have it backwards, this article’s content is THE REASON for not the symptom of this is boring off season.
Actually they EXPLAIN the boring off-season. So they’re kinda important.
So are some of the commenters on these boards.
Why bother selling tickets?
Because people like making more money obviously lol.
The Dodgers (for example) easily make more money selling tickets and hot dogs and jerseys at the stadium than they do on TV. It costs $125 or something on average to walk into Dodger Stadium. And they sell 3 million tickets a year. Do the math.
Now consider the Marlins, who sell 800,000 tickets or something and charge half as much.
Doing the math, I don’t doubt the stadium operations are profitable, but stadium revenues do come with stadium operations costs, etc and their profit margin is not ~ 50+% which is what it would take to be worth more. It’s likely stadium ops margins are in the 20-30% range.
FYI, food & alcohol are done by a concessionaires (like at an airport) on a fixed + % of sales fee basis. LAD merchandise is MLB licensed and that revenue is shared with all MLB teams & Players.
.Conversely, local TV rights are virtually 100% pure profit, $196M.
Now the LA Dodgers like several teams own a piece of their RSN. What this lets them do is capture some of the upside in the RSN’s profitability which is advertising + whatever the RSN charges cable outlets (Spectrum, YouTubeTV, etc) to carry the RSN.
The Marlins do an awful job of connecting with Miami-Dade’s majority Latino population. If Manfred had half a brain, he’d have known it was vital to have a leading local family of Cuban heritage (Jorge Mas or Emilio Estefan) as principal owner. To take every last penny and hand the team to Bruce Sherman was a slap in the face to the locals and a strong reason why the Marlins are the ultimate “who cares” franchise.
The Marlins’ problem is, and has been for a long time, that it wants to be the southern outpost of the Yankees. That hasn’t worked; Yankees fans don’t convert to Marlins fans. But they keep trying, for some reason.
This was an excellent idea for an article
Nice! A’s making bank, despite intentionally not being competitive.
Not nice. Their local TV revenue is 50% higher than their entire player payroll. They don’t have to sell a single ticket, hot dog, or t-shirt. Pathetic. Even worse are the fans who allow Fisher to get away with it. Maybe he’ll do better in Vegas, but once a chea pass always a chea pass.
@For Love of the Game
That’s why he didn’t care who came to the game. And Pirates weren’t far off from that mark too. They essentially needed about $20M from concessions/sales/tickets to make up the difference. It’s estimated that teams make $2 million per game on concessions so with tickets and concessions alone, the Pirates probably made the total salary in the month of April/May. Haha!
$2M per game on concessions? To me, that doesn’t add up. If the Pirates’ average attendance is 20,000 (I admit I haven’t looked), and assuming the team splits 50/50 with the concessionaires, that means on average each fan has to spend $200 on concessions per game. I could be wrong, but that seems awfully high to me.
Those numbers from the Dodgers though, they’re making bank on their TV deal. At least they spend that money on product on the field though, Dodgers fans have it good.
Blue Jays are unreported because Rogers probably doesn’t pay to Broadcast lol. Rogers owns the Blue Jays, the stadium, the national Sports Channel (Sportsnet) that airs every Jays game, and the radio network that also has the games. I guess there is no point in paying themselves with their own money?
It would all be internal; and since no negotiating is required to secure TV rights, there would be no numbers the public could access until it is divulged in financial reports in 2025.
The accountants let them know what dollars to move around each year to make the books balance. They aren’t looking for bragging rights, just a clean steady profit.
But the Cubs own Marquee and they still reported revenue numbers…
Because the Cubs own Marquee.
The Blue Jays don’t own Rogers. Rogers owns them, and the cable/tv network, and the radio, and half of the rest of Canada…
It’s a different relationship
The Blue Jays parent company is basically a private government
When teams fully own their RSN, an MLB committee assigns a value to it for the purposes of revenue sharing. Despite common ownership, TOR likely does cut a check to their RSN however that $ amount is NOT an arms length transaction, hence MLB involvement.
It’s common for MLB teams to have multiple sets of accounting records. All teams likely have a GAAP equivalent set of books, these are the most common rules, 3rd parties like banks would want it in this format, For those teams that are partnerships, most are, they are likely running a set of books for TAX. Not all transactions are captured the same between GAAP and TAX (US IRS), the latter is needed for the filing of partnership K-1’s and any entity based tax returns. MLB owners are wealthy and their friends in Congress have passed some advantageous tax rules that benefit them.
Lastly teams have a set of “MLB based” accounting books. These are the accounting books MLB uses for revenue sharing, CBT calculations, etc.. Certain team revenues and/or expenses are handled in an alternate manner than either the GAAP or TAX rules..
So nobody knows how we’ll be able to watch twins games yet?:(
Nope. There are a few teams in limbo like that. Maybe they just loosen the blackouts and force you to get MLB.com streaming and listen to the opposing team’s broadcast.
For Padres games last year they lifted the blackout restrictions, so you could get the MLB.TV broadcasts wherever you wanted.
I’m not sure what the production costs are but it seems reasonable that they could get at least enough MLB.TV signups to cover the production costs for the year and just do the Twins deal like they did the Padres and Dbacks.
MLB will most likely step in and get something done.
So the largest contract is 6 times larger than the smallest contract.
Revenue sharing shrinks that disadvantage a bit. The luxury tax is supposed to help keep it from becoming insurmountable.
The luxury tax is a joke now thanks to endless deferrals, however
And that’s less than the margin in gate/concessions revenue between the highest (Dodgers) and lowest (Marlins/Pirates). In terms of total revenue I’d estimate the Dodgers/Yankees in the $700m range, maybe a bit higher, and the Marlins/Pirates in the $200m range. And of course, non-player-payroll expenses are roughly flat across all teams, something around $75m. So that margin is all pure profit or player personnel extravagance.
If you’re complaining about owners getting too much profit, you should start with the rich teams.
I’m complaining about competitive imbalance. A little hypocritical as a fan of a big market team, yes, but I greatly care about the sport as a whole.
I want kids in Kansas City and Milwaukee to be able to buy into their baseball teams with the same passion as their football teams.
As far as profits, at least the Dodgers and Yanks reinvest in the on field product. The small market owners who pocket the revenue sharing make the competitive imbalance worse.
I’ve watched the A’s broadcast and now that Ray Fosse is gone the quality of product is worth about 1/4 of that. RIP Ray.
That is true, but I think it drops ever further, as they stick Dallas Braden on the air. He is a knowledgeable guy, but can’t resist talking about himself ad nauseam on every broadcast. I can’t count on even two hands the number of games last year they talked about his perfect game, and the “pound town” garbage is borderline obscene. Missing Glen Kuiper. Didn’t appreciate him pulling out baseball cards during blowouts and talking more about them than the game on the field, but at least he was less of a Braden enabler than Cotroneo.
While this is an approximation based on rough figures that aren’t readily reported – this gives you a rough idea, with MLB being the 2nd most profitable in North American pro sports, behind NFL. However, I wonder if that also figures in robust MLB.tv numbers.
getargon.io/posts/entertainment/sports/nfl/top-spo…
Revenue is different from profits
This lays out the income disparity between teams very well and illustratea the hypocrisy that the RSN model has become over the years.
For all of the Negative Nancy’s out there, is all you ever do is b^t€h?
Nope, we advocate for an equal playing field. Which is what sports are supposed to be about, at least in theory.
Speak for yourself. Some of us favor free enterprise over socialism.
Then you aren’t a true sports enthusiast, who believes in letting the best ‘man’ win. You’re more of a ‘let the biggest wallet have the best chance to win’ kinda guy. That’s why the NFL is superior to MLB, for parity.
You know nothing about me or how I feel about sports.
The NFL has a salary cap, which is grossly unfair to players as it creates a fixed pie for their compensation, because the union is weak compared to the MLBPA.
Bursting your bubble, it is possible to disagree with you and still be a sports enthusiast.
How were the Padres making less than the Indians, Pirates and Reds? Not only is their contract canceled but they made less than much smaller markets.
The fact is that Bally dropped those markets because they were losing money. You may misjudge the Padres media market. So far Bally hasn’t mentioned dropping Cincinnati or Pittsburgh so they must at least be breaking even. Cleveland will be dropped if they don’t agree to reduced payments.
The amount the local cable companies are willing to pay also plays into this. The cord cutting rate may be much higher in San Diego. That would make it difficult for the cable companies to pay enough to support the contract.
FWIW the way Diamond has been able to pick and choose what they pay on and what they don’t is really a bad look on the league. MLB should’ve told DSG long ago that you keep them all or you drop them all. And show willingness to use all of MLB’s resources to fight them in court over it.
This is what bankruptcy looks like. Companies get to pick and choose. A bankrupt retailer can disavow certain long-term leases and close stores without further obligation to the landlord. Diamond Sports contracts that are profitable will be retained; the losing contracts go away. Someone will pick up broadcast rights to all the teams, just at rates reflecting the current market.
This necessary article shows why baseball is broken. This demonstrates the wide gap that exists between the large and small market teams.
Why would Ballys pay the Angels and the Brewers the same.? It’s based on market size. Thats the way it’s always been in regard to Radio and TV.
Angels are still getting paid a lot. All in Arte”s pocket. since they have nobody to spend money on.
They’ve spent plenty of money.. they’ve just spent it terribly.
Here you are commenting on a baseball website, so yes.
Do you pay for snow removal in Florida?
The Padres are a big failure on the media side…
Their local radio is on an FM station that does not even cover large pockets of upper middle class and wealthy neighborhoods. Using the HD sub channels, they have repeaters in some of the more remote areas where reception in a less densely populated area has wonderful reception but there are big gaps along the coastal areas.
Their television situation is an even bigger screw up.
This all comes down to the Padres front office. For years individuals have benefited from media contracts, including one person named Mike
Dee who got the radio contract arrangement and then went off to work for that company soon after.
The incompetency of that front office is something to be aware of. This is the same front office that had an employee involved with two Padre players and later accuse Trevor Bauer of many naughty things. (Although there is actual video that proves that this person was lying and text messages, including with a Padres farmhand, proving that she was planning extortion.)
This fool wrote the longest post in these comments and didn’t have a point relevant to Ballys. Just odd incoherent rambling. Maybe you should see a doctor.
The company that owns the Padres’ flagship station was too far in debt to purchase AM 760 when it was on the block a couple of years ago. Combining the AM and FM signals would have reached the entire San Diego area.
But the Padres ownership chose to play ball with 97FM and now have to accept its limitations.
Far more over the course of a season than any other sport worldwide, except soccer. Yes, that includes the NFL, which has much better ratings but a huge number of repeat viewers over the course of a season and of course 1/10 the number of games.
No that’s another myth, depending on what you mean by “viewers.” Yeah, the TV audience is old, no doubt. But that’s also true of football (not soccer or the NBA, interestingly). But the in-person attendance demographics of baseball is actually very healthy. Young-ish, diverse ethnically, and with loads of walkups rather than legacy season-ticket holders.
Mariners ownership crying poor when they received $100M in local broadcasting is downright laughable. Open the wallet Stanton!!!!! :/
The problem for most teams is the very real possibility of Bally shutting down after the 2024 season. I’m sure that’s why St. Louis signed two so so starters to one year contracts. There’s a lot of danger in long term contracts for teams depending on Bally income.
Its only a matter of time before teams head to bankruptcy protection. The fees for cable and advertising rates are about to drop through the floor and that will result in severely reduced payments to the teams.
The economy is about to crash too. This perfect economic storm will cause a likely 10% of the MLB teams to seek bankruptcy protection. Wait for it.
Completely disagree. Most teams are getting $60 mill. in local broadcast fees. That would be about 400,000 people paying $1 per game, not counting ad revenue that would greatly lower the number of paying subscribers needed.
And please stop with the economy crashing. I’m an economist with 38 years of experience and this isn’t what a crashing economy looks like.
The economy is effing roaring. I don’t get this doom-and-gloom stuff you see all over the internet. Unless it’s just political (amazing how the economy looks totally different when your favorite party is in the White House again).
Doomsday Prophet, look at the contracts, The teams are swimming with profit, add in some streaming money, wow!
Arrangement or Financial Info?
It looks like the Dodgers can afford a second Ohtani, and perhaps even a third Ohtani by next year. The dodo is going to be cloned soon, so why not O? Sure, per Dr. Evil the clone will be exactly 1/8 his current size, but everyone would want his jersey.
Seems like it might be worth mentioning that 48% of local television revenue (as well as ticket sales) are funneled back to the league and then redistributed equally among all teams.
How did the A’s making more TV money then half the league??? Does that amount go down or up in Vegas, I’m guessing down since Vegas is a smaller market than the CA Bay Area.
Thanks! I’ve been wondering about this…..
You play to win the game, time to increase the floor. The Rangers, Astros, Braves, Dodgers, Nats., seems random to me. There is a lot of parity in baseball right now, there are 15 teams that could win this year. Rangers won for the first time in their history last year.
How much goes to the godforsaken apple people for ruining my friday nights like 5 times a year to watch the game and hear the commentary 10 seconds after the play?
Starting to think the mute doesn’t work on gold members
It doesn’t mute any replies to a comment from an author you haven’t blocked. It is annoying, though. I don’t want to read all that junk from Gbs42.
My back of envelope calculations just had teams getting like $30 per seat * average attendance around 25k *81 home games. I had merchandise as maybe a small amount, but I didn’t realize the magnitude of TV deals. This does really explain that the As are, indeed, cheap. However, it is fair to not expect owners to incur a loss since they wouldn’t be billionaires anymore if they spend that much. Fans always have the ability to buy a team individually or collectively and spend theur money incurring annual losses if they disagree with the spending. Obviously, 50000 shareholders would never approve Cohen-like spending since those collective billionaires would also want to make profits. (HOW EVIL!!!, right)
I’m a Twins fan living in AZ, so as long as I’m still able to watch Twins games on my mlb.tv subscription i’;; be happy. Just wish the team would finally sign someone decent….
So according to John Ourand from SBJ, the Dodgers actually make much more than that. “Another MLB team in SoCal — the Dodgers — has an ironclad RSN contract that pays an average of $334 million per year through 2038.” sportsbusinessjournal.com/SB-Blogs/Newsletter-Medi…
Seeing these pittances makes me root for the owners to receive even more taxpayer money on new facilities and infrastructure. It’s only fair…
I really wonder if the Angels $125MM is due in large part to S. Ohtani.
Safe to say their $$$ will drop at renegotiation time.
It’s worth nothing that regional cable giants Comcast and Spectrum are partnered with the (former Mets owners, the) Wilpon family in SNY.
The current Mets owner Steve Cohen, has no stake in SNY, though it’s been reported he tried to buy out the Wilpons’ share when he took over the ballclub a few years ago.
As judged by the number of Bay Area televisions in public playing Giants v A’s broadcasts Giants are getting short end of stick.
I’m eagerly awaiting the day when all baseball games will be accessible live via mlb.tv to everyone with broadband for $100 per year.
$ amounts will be equitably distributed based on actual viewership. All would be transparent.
For every municipal & state government that MLB (thru their partners) grounded down for land grants, tax deferrals & blackmail payouts for new buildings, how about MLB now fund their own channel and subsidize it themselves, selling it to viewers for a reasonable $20 a month? No blackouts
The Cubs still scraping the bottom of the barrel like they’re broke every year makes me lol. Consistently avoids the top players in free agency. Teams with nearly half the revenues spend more money on players. What a joke the MLB is.
MASN is not “co-owned” by the Orioles and Nationals. The Orioles control/own around 80% give or take at this point in time. The Nationals share increases annually but is capped, I believe, at 33%.
So they both own shares together. Co-owned doesn’t mean 50/50. A one percent owner is a co-owner.
In 2024 O’s should own 75%, Nats 25%. In 2032 NATS reach 33% cap. This is what I could find on the internet. Wikipedia states a 77/23 split but references a 2022 date.
By the way, the $61MM figure for MASN broadcasting rights in the article is flawed. As reported in The Baltimore Banner article (12/15/23) the actual breakdown for the 5 year period (2017-2021) is 2017 ($64.97MM), 2018 ($68.72MM), 2019 ($70.79MM), 2020 ($26.76MM), 2021 ($72.83MM). Note the reduced amount for 2020 – short season. The $61MM is the AVERAGE for these 5 years. The last year listed is $72.8MM for 2021.
wow between this and the $110M reported 2023 revenue sharing, and no rent, seems that John Angelos is vindicated in his assertion that the Orioles would need to increase ticket prices in order to afford extending the youngsters.
“No need to open the books after this year waiting on you, Johnny Boy. I know you’ve been busy. Good thing we’ve made it past 2 MLK Days out of respect for him of course.”
Mariners had 5th highest revenue off their local sports broadcasts in all of baseball in 2023. And our owner, in the midst of the youngest pitching staff & top 5 rotation, will NOT SPEND big bucks on free agency. Am I missing something here?!?!?
Exactly!!! #5 or #6 on highest revenue stream in all of baseball off broadcasts. And Stanton won’t get us a real 3b or upgrade 1b. I like france but his numbers fell off hardcore. Meanwhile Soler ans cj cron just sitting out there. Do something Stanton. U wonder why the astros and now rangers are at top of the mountain?? Cuz they spend money on the RIGHT FREE AGENTS
Like everything else in his life, Bob Nutting is living off what other people built.
Luckily for us Penguins fans, FSG bought our failed RSN and Pens games are secure and luckily for Pirate fans, FSG bought our failed RSN for Pens games and the Pirates were able to hop on the train.
Oh, and I don’t have to use Amazon Prime to watch a game. Nice.
Brewers: ’22 revenue: $33MM.
Cubs: ’22 revenue: $99MM
Ouch, just like America’s Team, the Green Bay Packers, the Brewers with a 1/3 of the Cubs’ revenue, still OWN the hateable losers of Chicago.
Cubs and their “fans” should be, and are, embarrassing.
Finally an article that begins to validate how disgusting and loaded the Dodgers are, they make basically twice what every other team does in TV revenue so they can keep buying superstars to appease their pathetic entitles fans and trolls on here can take their “but your billionaire owner can spend too!” narrative and shove it.
I am an Orioles fan in North Carolina. Due to archaic mlb rules. I’m 400 miles from Baltimore, but in their rights territory. So the mlb package I can’t get. Spectrum cable had a tiff with the Os so they don’t carry masn. Satellite is my only option and it’s only on a 200+ a month package until recently that now you can get it on direct TV steam for a decent price. MASN did crawl into the 21st century in 2022 and now has a roku and phone app.
Nothing and I mean nothing has harmed baseball more than getting rid of baseball on local and basic cable. Not strikes, long games, PEDs, or anything else. Think about it. You can watch more football games over the air than baseball games.
Of note: Jays last reported to be averaging around 900k viewers per game. No other team gets 1/3rd of that viewership. When the Jays sucked in the early 2000s they were around 100k per game. Since Rogers owns the Jays and their TV station (and cable company and cell company) safe to say that keeping them up there is critical for them and worth as much or more than any other club. That is why they were in the Ohtani sweepstakes and can afford any player they want and why fans are restless this winter.