Six MLB teams move local TV rights to league for 2026 after FanDuel Sports Network misses payments

Beginning with the 2026 season, local television broadcasts for the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays will be produced and distributed by Major League Baseball itself, after their regional sports network partner failed to meet rights-fee obligations.

The shift pulls another chunk of baseball’s local media business away from the traditional regional sports network (RSN) model and into the league’s in-house operation, known as MLB Local Media. With these six clubs on board, MLB is now set to handle local broadcasts for at least 13 of its 30 teams in 2026—an expansion that underscores both the financial strain on regional sports channels and the league’s growing role as a direct broadcaster.

MLB confirmed the changes this week after the clubs terminated agreements with Main Street Sports Group, the debt-trimmed successor to bankrupt Diamond Sports Group, which operated Bally Sports channels and now controls FanDuel Sports Network. Main Street missed scheduled rights payments, including a December installment owed to the Cardinals, triggering contractual rights that allowed teams to exit.

“We have been preparing for this possibility,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said in January, when questions about Main Street’s finances intensified. “No matter what happens, whether it’s Main Street, a third party or MLB media, fans are going to have the games.”

A rebranded partner falters again

The six affected clubs had their games on channels rebranded as FanDuel Sports Network in October 2024, when Diamond Sports reached a naming-rights deal with the sportsbook and began phasing out the Bally Sports name. Diamond emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Jan. 2, 2025, cut its debt load from roughly $9 billion to about $200 million and changed its corporate name to Main Street Sports Group.

Executives pitched the restructuring as a fresh start for the largest RSN operator in the country. But even with a lighter balance sheet, the company has struggled to keep up with long-term, high-priced MLB deals it inherited in an era of steady cord-cutting and shrinking cable audiences.

In all, nine MLB clubs have now ended their local TV contracts with Main Street’s FanDuel-branded networks. The Reds, Royals, Marlins, Brewers, Cardinals and Rays chose to move under MLB’s umbrella for 2026. The Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers and Los Angeles Angels have also exited but have not yet announced new arrangements.

The stakes are significant for the sport’s finances. Manfred has said local media accounts for more than 20% of leaguewide revenue, and the league has warned clubs that it does not intend to offer long-term subsidies to replace lost RSN money.

MLB’s growing in-house network

The league’s takeover in these six markets follows a blueprint established during Diamond Sports’ original collapse.

MLB first stepped in to produce games for the San Diego Padres in May 2023 after a missed payment by Diamond. The Arizona Diamondbacks followed later that season. By 2024, MLB was running local broadcasts for the Padres, Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies, and in 2025 it added the Cleveland Guardians and Minnesota Twins while also taking over production of Seattle Mariners telecasts carried on Root Sports Northwest. The Washington Nationals joined the group in the most recent offseason.

Under this model, MLB’s production unit uses the infrastructure of MLB Network to create what it describes as “national broadcast-quality” local telecasts, with added camera angles, enhanced graphics, and expanded pregame and postgame shows. The league negotiates carriage with cable and satellite providers and, crucially for cord-cutters, sells a direct-to-consumer streaming package in each market through a team-branded website such as Padres.TV or Dbacks.TV.

The club-specific streaming services have typically been priced around $19.99 per month and have not been subject to the in-market blackouts that long frustrated subscribers to the broader MLB.TV package.

How the six new markets will change

For fans of the six newly affected teams, the most visible change will be how they access games rather than who is calling them. In prior takeovers, MLB has generally retained local announcing crews and many of the same production staff, while changing the channel branding and distribution platforms.

The Cardinals have already announced a Cardinals.TV streaming product that will offer every in-market game without blackout restrictions, with plans publicized at $19.99 per month or $99.99 for the season. Team executives have framed the move as a chance to reach more households after years under a shrinking cable footprint.

The Royals, who had recently extended their media-rights deal with Main Street before the latest financial trouble, are expected to launch a Royals.TV platform and supplement it with a package of games on free over-the-air television in the Kansas City area. Local officials have said uninterrupted access was a priority as concerns mounted about Main Street’s long-term stability.

The Reds, Brewers, Marlins and Rays are expected to follow a similar pattern, with club-branded streaming services and continued carriage on major cable and satellite systems under MLB-negotiated deals. Specific pricing and blackout policies for those services had not been fully detailed as of early February, but in every prior MLB-run market the league has lifted in-market blackout restrictions for the new direct streaming offering.

For cable subscribers, games will likely continue to appear on familiar channel slots, though under different names than the FanDuel Sports Network brands. The changes will be more dramatic for fans who rely solely on streaming or over-the-air antennas.

RSN model under strain

The latest wave of exits highlights ongoing stress on the regional sports network model, which took shape in the 1980s and 1990s and became a pillar of local sports economics. RSNs paid escalating rights fees to teams based on the assumption that live sports would help cable operators retain subscribers and justify high per-subscriber fees.

That assumption has broken down as millions of households have cut the cord. RSNs, which depend heavily on distribution fees from pay-TV providers, have faced shrinking revenue even as long-term rights obligations remain fixed.

Diamond Sports filed for Chapter 11 protection in March 2023. Its reorganization into Main Street Sports Group was meant to preserve a large portfolio of local rights for MLB, NBA and NHL teams. The company still controls 15 networks carrying games for 13 NBA and seven NHL clubs.

But the decision by nearly a third of MLB franchises to move away from Main Street in less than three years suggests the model remains under severe pressure. Industry analysts say the company appears to be shedding contracts that are hardest to make profitable in a diminished cable universe.

A step toward a national streaming future

For MLB, each RSN failure has deepened its involvement in local broadcasting and given the league more direct relationships with fans.

By handling production and selling subscription streaming in-house, MLB gains access to customer data and pricing decisions that once belonged to third-party media companies. League officials have previously floated the idea of eventually offering a single, national, blackout-free streaming product that would include every team’s local games, replacing the current patchwork of RSNs and separate in-market services.

Any move to centralize all local rights under one seller would likely attract scrutiny in Washington, where MLB’s longstanding antitrust exemption has come under renewed attention in recent years. For now, though, the league’s role has expanded largely in response to counterparties that could not fulfill contracts.

The Braves, Tigers and Angels remain wild cards. The Braves, whose games have traditionally drawn strong ratings across a wide regional footprint, said in a recent statement that they were “well on [their] way towards launching a new era in Braves broadcasting” after cutting ties with FanDuel Sports Network. The club has not indicated whether it will join MLB’s in-house system or pursue an independent path.

For fans in Cincinnati, Kansas City, Miami, Milwaukee, St. Louis and Tampa Bay, the 2026 season will test whether MLB’s approach delivers on its promise of broader access with fewer blackouts. For the league and its media partners, the six-team shift is another sign that the long-dominant RSN model is being rapidly replaced by something more centralized—and far more digital—than what came before.