In the summer of 1964, Ford Frick opened a telegram that, on its face, looked like a small-market complaint. Wisconsin congressman Henry Reuss was worried about the Milwaukee Braves leaving town. His solution was almost naive: pool the television money so no team would have an incentive to leave. Frick’s response was polite, dismissive, and revealing. Not now, he said. Maybe someday.

What Frick understood, instinctively, was that television money wasn’t just revenue. It was leverage. And you don’t centralize leverage unless you have to.

Sixty years later, Rob Manfred is staring at a different kind of telegram. It isn’t coming from Congress. It’s coming from the market.

Cord-cutting hollowed out regional sports networks. Streaming fractured distribution. The old system didn’t collapse all at once. It eroded, then cracked.

And suddenly, the idea that was “not feasible” is no longer optional. It’s the only move left on the board.

Let's break it down into 5 big questions:
1) What happened to the RSNs?
2) Why does this hurt baseball more than other sports?
3) How does this create a two-class system?
4) What's MLB's plan to fix it?
5) Will it work?

Past Major League Baseball: 2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 

What happened to the RSNs?

RSN equity value is down 97% since 2018, when Disney announced the Fox acquisition.

RSN equity value:
1) 2018 (Disney) - $20B
2) 2019 (Sinclair) - $10B
3) 2020 (Sinclair) - $5B
4) 2024 (Main Street Sports) - $600M

This collapse was obvious for a decade. RSNs were the weakest link in the pay-TV bundle. A house of cards built on sand.

Quote from John Ourand - Author @ Puck:
“When I write my book about the worst sports media deals of all time, Glide Path vs. Cliff Path: The Grinfuck Story, I will devote several chapters to Sinclair’s $10 billion purchase of the Fox Sports-branded R.S.N.s in 2019. Last week, CNBC’s Lillian Rizzo and Alex Sherman wrote that Sinclair is planning to sell 60 local TV stations—about 30 percent of its total—to pay down its $4 billion in debt. It’s not hard to draw a straight line from that disastrous R.S.N. purchase to this decision (and so many others, as loyal Varsity readers know all too well). In fact, one longtime Sinclair employee shot me an email that said, “The ill-advised purchase of those sports tier holdings didn’t trigger Sinclair’s fire sale, but they without a doubt tipped this company into its downward trajectory.”

The core problem: 80-90% of RSN revenue came from cable subscription fees.  As traditional pay-TV lost 55M households since 2010, the math broke.

Total RSN subscriptions (Kagan):
1) 2000 - 100M
2) 2005 - 151M (↑ 51%)
3) 2010 - 167M (↑ 11%)
4) 2015 - 189M (↑ 13%)
5) 2020 - 154M (↓ 18%)
6) 2025 - 63M (↓ 59%)

Here's what most people miss: RSNs weren't just a delivery vehicle. They were baseball's single largest advertising platform. Local RSNs generated more baseball ad revenue than Fox, ESPN, Turner, MLB Network, and Apple combined.

Why does this hurt baseball more than other sports?

Because MLB depends on local TV money more than any other major league.

Share of revenue from local TV (Sportico):
1) MLB - 19%
2) NBA - 12%
3) NHL - 11%
4) NFL - 1%

Local TV viewing accounts for 80% of total viewership across Major League Baseball.  On the flip side, Major League Baseball is 59% of local media rights.  Any move they make will reshape the sports media landscape.

How does this create a two-class system?

The Dodgers collect $334M per year from Charter, guaranteed regardless of cord-cutting. That single deal is roughly worth more than the bottom 15 teams combined.  The Dodgers have revenue locked in through 2038. 80% of teams are on one-year deals.

MLB teams by local media rights deal length:
1) Two+ years - 7 (20%)(2036 is average end)
2) One year - 22 (80%)

Highest annual local rights fees (Kagan):
1) Los Angeles Dodgers - $334M
2) New York Yankees - $217M
3) Chicago Cubs - $132M
4) New York Mets - $128M
5) Boston Red Sox - $100M

Bottom line: The revenue gap between the Dodgers (#1) and Yankees (#2) equates to roughly two Hall of Fame-level players.

Winning three out of the past six World Series championships is impressive. Finding someone at Spectrum to sign this media rights agreement is far more historic.

The impact of the RSN implosion is being felt far beyond the small-market teams. As an example, look no further than the St. Louis Cardinals, who have lost 50% of their local media rights revenue in two years!

Local media rights for St. Louis Cardinals:
1) 2024 - $80M
2) 2025 - $60M (↓ 25%)
3) 2026 - $40M (↓ 33%)

Under the old system, networks took the financial risk. Now the teams do. Big-market teams keep cashing guaranteed checks. Everyone else watches revenue shrink with no floor in sight.

What's MLB's plan to fix it?

A calculated gamble on 2029. MLB intentionally signed short three-year national deals (2026-28). When Fox and TNT contracts also expire in 2029, MLB plans to bundle national and local rights into one mega-deal. The NFL/NBA model, where every team gets an equal national disbursement.

Will it work?

That depends on what happens between now and 2029. Ratings are up. If fans need multiple paid services to replace RSNs, viewership may fall.

For example, the Yankees will air on 10 different networks this season.

70% of those would require a paid subscription.  If you wanted to watch every game, you would be spending $790 for the season.

The risk is fragmentation. If fans must navigate multiple paid services to replicate what RSNs once provided seamlessly, total consumption may fall. In that case, MLB trades one problem (RSN collapse) for another (demand erosion).

MLB isn’t choosing to share TV money.

It’s being forced to.

What was optional in 1964 is now the only move left.