After the Diamond Sports Group discharged the media rights for the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks during the 2023 season, Major League Baseball stepped in to broadcast both teams’ games for the remainder of the year.
While neither team’s broadcasting plans for 2024 have been set quite yet, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred claims that the league could not only broadcast those two teams next season but also “up to 16 teams,” per Sports Illustrated.
“We will be in a position that we can handle up to 16 teams next year,” Manfred said. He added that despite his unhappiness with the process, he believes that the league’s future is in streaming.
Manfred also said that MLB “sold 18,000 subscriptions” for Padres games, despite taking over the team’s broadcasts on “literally hours’ worth of notice.” For whatever it’s worth, 18,000 subscriptions at $74.99 come to around $1.35 million, or approximately ten games of Manny Machado’s annual salary.
Despite the shift to MLB-operated broadcasts in May and July, respectively, viewership for Padres and Diamondbacks games in their local markets didn’t take a huge hit. The average Padres’ rating slid by 7% while the Diamondbacks’ local rating increased by 25%. Despite the decrease, the Padres still had MLB’s seventh-highest local rating in 2023.
Manfred’s quote about MLB broadcasting games for “up to 16 teams” may seem arbitrary, but the math works out. Two teams, the Diamondbacks and Padres, were dropped by the Diamond Sports Group and MLB aired their games in 2023. Another 12 teams (including the Minnesota Twins, whose carriage deal with Diamond ended after the 2023 season) had carriage deals with Diamond in 2023. Two more teams, the Pirates and Rockies, aired their games on AT&T SportsNet RSNs in 2023, which shut down after the season.
How many of the 16 teams’ games will MLB produce and broadcast in 2024? We’ve still got about five months to figure that out. But if MLB does get nudged into more short-term deals like it did with the Padres and Diamondbacks, the league can clearly handle it.
About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.