The Brewers TV broadcasts could be on the move. Yesterday, Even Drellich of The Athletic reported that the Brewers were among the nine teams who terminated their contract with FanDuel Sports Network and Main Street Sports Group. This leaves the Brewers without a TV broadcaster, and spring training games set to start in about a month and a half.
Over the course of the offseason, Main Street Sports Group — the parent company of FanDuel Sports Network — has struggled and faced another potential bankruptcy. That possibility escalated last month when they missed a payment to the Cardinals — Adam covered this more in-depth at that time. Main Street Sports Group has been in negotiations to sell a majority stake to DAZN, but those negotiations ended up falling through. Another report from yesterday notes that Main Street is also in talks with Fubo, a streaming service that is more focused on streaming sports.
The main reason that the teams are terminating their contracts now is protection from Main Street going into bankruptcy. If they end up entering bankruptcy again, those TV rights could be held until it resolves, which could take months. It would be a similar situation to 2023, when they also went through bankruptcy (then known as Diamond Sports Group). By terminating the contract now, the teams protect their TV rights from being held in limbo during the bankruptcy process and also gives them some flexibility to find the best option before the 2026 season.
This does not necessarily end the Brewers’ partnership with FanDuel Sports. They could negotiate a new deal and return for next season. However, any new contract would likely have a reduced payout compared to 2025. Reports are that Main Street Sports Group was looking to reduce costs prior to MLB teams terminating their contracts in an effort to avoid bankruptcy. Even if they can offer a fair rate, they would also have to convince the Brewers that they will stabilize in the near future. The Brewers could also look for another partner for their broadcasts, but with traditional cable options drying up, this is also less likely.
In a worst-case scenario, where the Brewers cannot find a fair deal with a TV partner before the season, there is a fallback option: MLB is ready to take over the broadcasts for all the teams that terminated their contracts. They have already stepped in to cover the broadcasts for six teams — the Diamondbacks, Guardians, Mariners, Padres, Rockies, and Twins. If MLB were to take control of the nine teams that terminated their contracts with FanDuel and Main Street Sports, they would control TV broadcasts for half of the teams in the league.
Any change in broadcaster would also not change the Brewers’ broadcast team. The actual team is employed by the Brewers, and they would remain the same regardless of who handles the TV broadcasts.
This would not be the first time the Brewers looked to MLB to handle their broadcasts. When their TV contract ended after the 2024 season, they initially announced that MLB would produce their broadcasts starting in 2025. However, later in the offseason they changed course and announced a new TV deal with FanDuel Sports, remaining on the same network for the 2025 season.
The biggest issue with an MLB takeover of broadcasts would be the revenue that the Brewers would collect. While exact numbers are not made public, what MLB would offer for the broadcast rights would be less than what a more traditional broadcast company would offer. That is why the Brewers elected to stay with FanDuel Sports last season even though they were just emerging from bankruptcy. If the Brewers do shift to MLB for broadcasts, that will impact the team’s finances. The most direct impact would be in the payroll, as the team may be more reluctant to spend money if they don’t collect as much revenue from a broadcast deal.
Previously, MLB had negotiated a one-year agreement with the MLBPA in 2024 to use luxury tax revenue to help teams whose TV revenues were affected. However, that agreement was only intended as a stopgap for teams that had disruptions in their TV revenue and was not renewed beyond 2024. With MLB taking on more teams, a more extensive long-term agreement would need to be negotiated.
In terms of the actual broadcast impact, it should be minimal. MLB will offer a package through MLB.TV — which will partner with ESPN to carry games starting in 2026 — to subscribe to Brewers’ games for either a monthly or yearly rate. They will also work with TV providers to put the games on different TV channels. As streaming continues to grow, it should be easier to buy a direct package for just the Brewers and watch all the games throughout the season. This was one of the weak points of the traditional TV setup. Instead of paying $60+ dollars a month for a full TV package, there will be a cheaper direct option for around $20 a month (and around $100 for the full season).
This would also help deal with the blackout issue that many fans have had to deal with. As streaming has continued to grow, one of the major bottlenecks has been blackouts. Even though MLB has offered a strong streaming package through MLB.TV, it was only good for watching out-of-market broadcasts. For anyone in a team’s market, they had to subscribe to a traditional cable package. This became even more frustrating for fans who lived in areas that had no options to watch the team via cable but were still considered in the blackout zone. A direct-to-consumer model with a streaming package gets around that issue, providing a guaranteed way to get the games regardless of where someone lives.
There shouldn’t be any concern about a disruption in actual Brewers’ TV broadcasts. Regardless of what happens with the rights, games will be covered somewhere in 2026. The main concern will be the revenue that a new partner generates for the Brewers. With the old traditional TV model continuing to crumble, major changes are coming in the next few years. Despite this, the games will continue on, and a new broadcast model focused around streaming could bring overall positive changes to the distribution of baseball games.