MLB faces historic shift as potential lockout, media rights and league changes loom
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Thursday’s Opening Day may be the calm before the storm for Major League Baseball. The league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players expires at the end of this season. Owners, with the commissioner’s backing, are almost sure to push for a salary cap (which would likely come with a salary floor to get players to the negotiating table). MLB owners have never been able to get a cap passed by the players union. It’s unclear if the end of the 2026 season will lead to a different result, but MLB Players Association Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer told ESPN last month he expects a lockout is “all but guaranteed.” In addition to the CBA’s expiration, there are major shifts underway for baseball media rights. One-third of the league’s teams didn’t have local TV deals in place for this season until this week. Nine MLB teams – the Washington Nationals, Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, and Detroit Tigers – announced Wednesday their brand new MLB-operated team channels will be carried by DirecTV. Most of those teams had previously been part of Main Street Sports (previously Diamond Sports Group), which operates FanDuel Sports Networks (previously Bally Sports). That entity has been teetering with liquidation, and the teams terminated their contracts with the company due to missed payments earlier this year. Get the CNBC Sport newsletter directly to your inbox The CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media, delivered weekly to your inbox. Subscribe here to get access today. A 10th team, the Atlanta Braves, is launching a new network called BravesVision. The Braves and Charter’s Spectrum announced a multiyear distribution agreement earlier this week. MLB ideally wants the rights to all 30…
Filed under: News - @ March 26, 2026 4:31 pm