The future of live sports TV reaches a tipping point

A similar approach was employed by MLB in 2023. The San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks were forced to find new cable homes in their respective markets in the middle of the season when Diamond relinquished the rights. Their games were also streamed direct-to-consumer. Fans had the option to buy in-market Padres and D-Backs games for $20 a month on MLB.TV.

MLB guaranteed the clubs 80% of revenues they were set to receive via TV in case there was a shortfall, and commissioner Rob Manfred said recently no such financial support was needed.

However, MLB is no longer offering a backstop guarantee of revenues, and Manfred said the league is prepared and able to take over broadcasts of up to 16 clubs in 2024.

A hybrid approach can work in the short term because it allows ratings to remain stable with the mix of viewers in linear TV and streaming.

The good news for baseball is there were 402 million combined viewers (96,000 per broadcast) tuning into MLB games on cable in 2022, according to viewership data obtained by theScore - more than double the total local viewership of the NBA on cable.

The not-so-great news: fewer people are paying for cable TV packages, which means there are fewer subscribers paying for bundles that may contain channels like an RSN they don’t watch. That was the magic of cable bundles for a long time. There was no itemized list in a consumer’s bill showing they paid, say, $7 for Bally Sports.