2025 Baseball Season

Make the hole bigger?

 

https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/47552639/sources-9-mlb-teams-end-deals-main-street-sports-group

I hadn't heard about this but apparently 9 more MLB teams just lost their RSNs. But most interesting was this nugget:

The nine MLB teams that remained with Main Street Sports coming off the bankruptcy period signed new deals. None of those deals, though, extends beyond 2028, according to a source, which falls in line with MLB's hopes of putting all 30 teams under a national umbrella by then.

If MLB gets more and more teams under it's media setup, it might naturally help level the financial playing field some. Though I can't imagine the biggest markets going along with it.

 

No kidding?!?

This is what MLB has been working toward for years, they're just waiting on local rights to expire.

Then you get centralized media rights run though MLB. Manafort has been all over this for the past few years.

 

I just didn't realize there was a specific timeline (2028/29) that MLB was working on.

 

There isn't, and I never said there was

 

The article suggests otherwise. There's no reason for 9 teams to separately concidentally sign media deals that end in 2028 without some guidance from MLB.

 

Ok, so maybe there is.

I'm busy watching college football.

Keep me posted later.

 

It was literally the only part of the article I quoted in the post you responded to.

The nine MLB teams that remained with Main Street Sports coming off the bankruptcy period signed new deals. None of those deals, though, extends beyond 2028, according to a source, which falls in line with MLB's hopes of putting all 30 teams under a national umbrella by then.

 

MLB.TV (the streaming package) came out in 2001 or 2002 I believe. Think about how far ahead of the times they were. This is pre-WIFI. This is still in the era of dial-up internet. This is right around when HD TV's start to come out. 7-8 years before smartphones.

They had streaming before anybody. Granted, it was re-packaging team's RSN feeds and making it available to all (with severe blackout restrictions due to those RSN agreements), but having that much of a head-start on the rest of every sport should have put them in a prime position to lead the charge for a centralized umbrella.

Unfortunately legacy deals, RSN takeovers, and the big market teams that have their own network have perpetually delayed a 'better' option for the consumer... but the league's future financial and overall health will be 100% determined by what sort of equitable television rights distribution they can settle on, which will hopefully be equal opportunities for all teams to benefit.

 

Caglianone probably doesn’t need the xtra 10 feet, but interesting.

 

Somebody needs to quickly tell us (based on last year’s payrolls)… are there more teams close or over the cap? Or more teams under the floor?

 

https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/tax

 

A’s would be insanely good with $160M payroll floor.

That structure would generally be a win for the Astros imho, although in terms of competitive advantage, the Astros should lobby for a low floor and a cap just above the current CBT. If they do institute a cap/floor it will be interesting to see how they handle the team that are way over. If the Dodgers and Mets get to exempt grandfathered contracts it renders it moot for 3-5 years minimum. There are 13 teams below $160M so depending on how they implement it, there would be a frenzy of extensions and overpaying 2nd/3rd tier free agents. If that’s the way it goes down Walker’s contract would end up being a bargain.

 

I would think with a cap, they'd have to phase it in over several years. So if the ultimate goal is 140/260, maybe you start with 100/300, then go to 120/280 the next year, etc. Teams like the Dodgers/Mets would just be unable to sign FAs (if I was in charge) until they are under the cap. One solution for the low end teams is instead of overpaying 3rd tier FAs, they could trade for some of the other teams' bigger contracts.

That said, I suspect even if they do manage a cap, it's going to be more NBA-like and have endless loopholes and exceptions, unfortunately.

 

It will never happen but if a cap/floor is adopted, they should have a draft, similar to an expansion draft.

Teams below the floor draft contracts from teams above the cap.

 

Yeah a 3 year phase in combined with maybe each team being able to exempt their 2 largest contracts from the cap during that time makes sense to me. That would also be a boon for Houston.