Pitch Switch: Trio of MLB Teams Shift Away From Diamond

Three more Major League Baseball teams are ditching the television rights and distribution agreements of the 2024 season by having the league itself produce and distribute telecasts of their non-national games for the 2025 season.

In addition, the 2023 World Champions have determined they will no longer be partnering with Sinclair Inc.-owned subsidiary Diamond Sports Group, which has indicated to a federal bankruptcy court that it seeks to “reject” all of its 2025 MLB team agreements.

MLB has confirmed that the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins will handle all local games for each team across the 2025 season.

“The new arrangement will give fans more options to watch their favorite teams on television or to stream digitally,” the league says, pointing to how the Guardians’ reach on its RSN was approximately 1.45 million households and the Twins reached approximately 1.08 million homes.

Guardians games across the 2024 season aired on DSG’s Bally Sports Great Lakes, while the Brewers saw their games air on Bally Sports Wisconsin. The Twins were on Bally Sports North across 2024.

According to the MLB, its direct-to-consumer streaming option brings Cleveland Guardians games to approximately 4.86 million households (a jump of 235% from the Bally RSN model); the Minnesota Twins’ reach expands to approximately 4.40 million homes (a rise of 307%).

The Milwaukee Brewers had a direct-to-consumer streaming option available with its previous local media arrangement and will continue to do so with MLB moving forward, the league says.

In fact, the arrangements with the Guardians, Brewers and Twins will be similar to how MLB produced and distributed games for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres during the 2024 season. Last season, MLB negotiated cable and satellite distribution agreements and made direct-to-consumer streaming options available at Dbacks.TV, Padres.TV, and Rockies.TV.

“With the media landscape continuing to evolve, Major League Baseball is committed to serving our fans by ensuring they can see their favorite Clubs, removing blackouts where we can, and ultimately growing the reach of our games,” said Noah Garden, MLB Deputy Commissioner, Business and Media. “We are proud to bring Guardians, Brewers and Twins games to their passionate fan bases with the same high-quality production that we have demonstrated in Arizona, Colorado and San Diego.”

Local games produced by MLB last year included special features normally associated with nationally televised games, including Ump Cam, live look-ins to the MLB Replay Operations Center, Wire Cam, on-field locations for pregame and postgame, new RF camera with a shallow depth-of-field look, and increased access like in-game interviews with players.

“In addition to expanding reach, Major League Baseball is utilizing resources to provide fans with an outstanding production that features new technology, improved picture quality and better access to the game and players,” said Billy Chambers, MLB Executive Vice President of Local Media.