MLB’s Netflix Era

0:04Andrew Marchand:Congratulations! You made the Varsity podcast. My name is John Aranda and I am Pucks sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today, Andrew Marchand comes back to the pod. Andrew is the senior sports media columnist for The Athletic and he hosts a great podcast at andrewmarchand.com. So today, we're going to do a deep dive into baseball's rights situation. We're going to look at how ESPN is going to replace Sunday Night Baseball. And we're going to offer an overview to how NBC fared during what it called legendary February. But before we get to Andrew, today is Wednesday, February 25th.

0:44Andrew Marchand:And here's what I'm watching. Good luck to the Atlanta Braves, who have decided to launch their own regional sports network in the year 2026. Yes, a year that it's seen the RSN business pretty much go up in flames. Braves games had been carried on FanDuel Sports Network, one of the Main Street Sports RSNs that's shutting down. So on Tuesday of this week, the team announced that it's launching Braves Vision as a way to gain control of the production, marketing, and distribution of those games. And in making the announcement, the team's president and CEO seem to be hearkening back to the 1970s, 80s, and 90s when the Braves were part of the TBS Superstation.

1:27Andrew Marchand:The problem is, it's not the 70s, 80s, or 90s anymore. It's 2026, and honestly, we know how this ends. The team is negotiating with cable companies like Comcast and Charter. That means they're going to be relegated to expensive digital tiers. They're also trying to open talks with Hulu and YouTube TV. Again, good luck. Neither of those distributors carry any RSNs, and I can't imagine they'll welcome the Atlanta Braves. The reality is that the Braves had no really good option. Main Street Sports is winding down, and there's no other regional sports network around that would buy their rights. Other Main Street teams have decided to let MLB handle their rights, but the The Braves want to keep some autonomy from that.

2:12Andrew Marchand:The problem is, like I said, it's 2026 and the market doesn't favor the team or their local rights so much. OK, now let's get to Andrew Marchand. Andrew Marchand, thank you for joining the pod again. We're about a month away from the start of Major League Baseball season, and we have some different partners coming in. NBC is going to show some games on Sunday night. Netflix eventizing. They're going to have an opening night game plus a couple of other games. You broke a story. They're talking with Barry Bonds about coming in to, I almost said Bobby Bonds, to show my age, but they're talking to Barry Bonds to come in possibly to be in the studio there.

3:01Andrew Marchand:From a national media perspective, not talking about the rights deal that we're to get into. In 2026, what should viewers expect from MLB?

3:13John:I mean, I think the issue for MLB, you know, for this year is there's too many partners still, because I think that was already a complaint for fans. And they've added two new ones with NBC and Peacock taking over Sunday Night Baseball in the first round of the playoffs. And then Netflix has opening day, NBC has exclusive of the next day. And so in the short term, I understand business-wise, if you're MLB, you're kind of excited to have NBC involved, to have Netflix involved. But for the consumer, you're going to have a lot of different broadcasters that you're going to have to kind of keep track of.

4:00Yeah.

4:01Andrew Marchand:You and I have gone back and forth on this. That's a complaint that I hear consistently from people. It's like, I don't know where to find the games. You know, I have to go to Netflix to see this one game or I have to go to NBC. ESPN is going to have midweek games. Of course, RSNs, if they're still around, you're going to be able to see it. You know, Main Street Sports, all the FanDuel Sports networks are closing up shop. And a lot of those rights reverted back to MLB, who is now negotiating with Comcast and Charter and DirecTV to get those games on the various channels. But the one thing, especially now, like as a new YouTube TV subscriber, I click on and it's going to take me to my game.

4:47Andrew Marchand:Like the whole idea of having to find the channel and channel surf to figure out where the game is, that doesn't happen as much anymore. I mean, anybody that listens to this pod knows I'm a big Maryland fan. And you don't know if you go to Peacock or if you go to Big Ten Network or sometimes it's on CBS or sometimes it's on Fox. And since I've been at YouTube TV, you don't need to know. You just click on the Maryland symbol and it just takes you right to the game. So that's an issue that I consistently hear from fans. But I don't think that you see any evidence of, you know, the from viewership, from ratings, from any, you know, any kind of metric that it's actually hurting any of the any of these networks or excuse me, any of these leagues like, you know, the NWSL is all across for NASCAR is across for.

5:38Andrew Marchand:I it's something that I think fans are used to and and and are have the ability to go find those games

5:47John:yeah so I haven't insulted you yet so we might as well get this out of the way um yeah that's myopic um in a lot of ways because yes you're not wrong that youtube tv and others you can um search uh for those games the issue is though you're a huge maryland terrapin fan so yes you find those games if you're not and you're just sort of not knowing what you want to watch and maybe you want to watch basketball it's not necessarily in your system as easily as it once was. Now it does guess and the algorithm is sometimes right and will tell you stuff at the I have Roku, I have Spectrum and sometimes it's correct and it has what I want out front and maybe YouTube's even better which you have YouTube TV but so I think look I'm not saying you're completely wrong but I don't know if again I think you're probably older fans who probably have more difficulty with it but I also think the casual fan and that's where NBC helps Major League Baseball I mean NBC is something that on a again we're getting out of the bigger discussion of how the world is changing and TV is changing but still broadcast is something that people turn to and can sort of you can see the viewership which you were referring to, is stronger.

7:07John:ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball did about 1.5 to 2 million, depending if you had a Yankees-Red Sox game, you get closer to 2 million, average more 1.5 with others. With NBC, those type of games, you probably can add another million. So why is that? Because of broadcast TV and people being able to find it, I don't think they're necessarily – so I think that shows there's a difference in terms of how people discover things. When you look at the ratings, when something's on broadcast, as compared to cable or streaming.

7:37Andrew Marchand:When you become a YouTube TV subscriber, what is it going to be? The Ithaca logo up there and you're going to click on that? I thought you went to Cornell. It's a weird thing.

7:47John:Yes. John, getting an oldie but goodie joke. I went to Ithaca College. Sometimes when people ask you where you went to school, you say Ithaca and then they say Cornell. And then I always say, if I was smart enough to go to Cornell, I would have said I went to Cornell. But the bottom line is Ithaca College, D3, you probably can find it somewhere on the internet, but maybe not be in your YouTube offerings.

8:16Andrew Marchand:The NBA just started brand new media rights deals where their games are now on NBC and on Amazon Prime in addition to ESPN. And I think if you watch the – well, the games are the games, but if you watch the pregame shows, they seem to be less – they seem to be talking more about the game on the court as opposed to storylines or as opposed to entertainment. And that seems to be something that both NBC and Amazon specifically did in order to sort of move forward with their NBA telecast. Widely praised decisions as well. What about baseball, Netflix, moving forward with Netflix and NBC? How do you expect those presentations to look?

9:13John:I think the big term that people like to use now from network executives, producers, etc. is celebrating the game. And I think when you talked about what Prime Video has done what NBC slash Peacock has done with the NBA it's kind of counter to inside the NBA which is known for its time at TNT Sports, now is on ESPN. They celebrate the game somewhat but they also make fun of everything and it's a little bit more of a comedy show more about the analyst, less about the players, more about having a good laugh. I think when you look at baseball, what they're going to try to do, Netflix, NBC, they want to make it feel big.

9:55John:I think when you look at what NBC has done a good job, this term eventizing, we kind of say it with a smile because that's what Netflix wants to do. But the idea that Fox or NBC, et cetera, haven't been eventizing forever, is crazy. Monday Night Football, ABC, ESPN, that was an event on Mondays. You look at the presentation of what Fox does with 425 with getting Tom Brady. I don't think this is necessarily new, but I do think there is something that they want to present it where, I'm not going to say they're PR arms of these leagues, but they want to celebrate the game. I also think, for example, I love soccer.

10:40John:We've talked about it previously. When someone does something spectacularly skillful, you want that celebrated. I think sometimes with the NBA, maybe with baseball too, sometimes some of that stuff and the skill level is a little bit lost in terms of the presentation and just how difficult it is to hit this 97 mile per hour fastball, you know, 450 feet. Now everyone can see, you know, the length of that home run, but just kind of explaining how that's done in the split second. It's just, there's stuff that I think you can go deeper and people have done it previously, but I think that you could see Netflix, you could see NBC Peacock, you know, lean into that type of

11:27Andrew Marchand:Yeah, you know, Andrew, I have to tell you, I can't wait to see Barry Bonds on Netflix. If he ultimately does sign with Netflix, he's been relatively invisible. He might not be very good, but he's somebody who I'm going to tune in to listen to easily on the first show, probably the second and third shows that they have as well. What's his role going to be like?

11:53John:Well, they got to sign him. So let's just say that first. but it's an inspired choice. You look at it, opening day, they have the Giants hosting the Yankees. On the Yankee side, they signed CeCe Sabathia and Sabathia is going to be doing the opening day, home run derby, and the Field of Dreams game. Bonds, he might only do opening day if they get the deal done but when you think about it, Barry Bonds is the home run king. his career at the end was marred by his allegations of steroid use. It's kept him out of the Hall of Fame, even though in his 10th year, you know, 75 % percentage is what you need to get in.

12:35John:He had 66%. So a lot of the voters thought that he should be a Hall of Famer. Look, he's known as a surly guy during his career. He did return to baseball for a year about a decade ago when he was the Florida Marlins hitting coach. But you don't see him that much. And I think if you have opening day, you're Netflix, and you have the Yankees in San Francisco to play the Giants, to have Barry Bonds as part of your presentation, I think makes it feel bigger.

13:11Andrew Marchand:I have to ask you a quick question. It has nothing to do with sports media, but you used to be a Hall of Fame voter. Would you vote for Barry Bonds?

13:20John:I did. Now, my take on the guys who are associated with steroids, it's a gray area. I mean, first off, baseball should have dealt with this. It really shouldn't have been left to the Hall of Fame or baseball writers of how to deal with this circumstance. But for me, guys who I felt like were Hall of Famers when, in my opinion, and all this is opinion, in my opinion, they started to use performance enhancing drugs. Then I let them in. Again, if they don't have any other situations or it doesn't happen multiple times. And so a guy like Bonds, I felt like if you understand the story behind when he did steroids and what was going on with the home run chases, I think before that, he was already a Hall of Famer.

14:04John:So to me, that's circumstantial. He's in, I voted for Roger Clemens as well. Again, same, similar reasoning. But there's guys that I didn't vote for who I felt like their careers were largely owed to steroids, or it looked like to me that their whole careers were due to steroids. And I just think you have to, having covered baseball during that era, I think there are a lot of players who didn't do it, who might've been Hall of Famers who are left out or not even in the discussion, or should they be, but very unfair. Also, the amount of money that people made and championships were won. And so I always say this, when you don't vote somebody in the Hall of Fame, you're not saying that you go to prison or something terrible about them.

14:45John:You're saying they don't deserve the highest individual honor in the sport. And so it's a gray area. It's kind of impossible to answer, but that's my take. That That was always my take on Bonds, on Clemens as well.

14:57Andrew Marchand:Yeah, as a baseball fan in that era, I would let them all in. I think they were the best ones of that era. And I would start first ballot Hall of Famer, Brady Anderson, of course. But I digress.

15:24Andrew Marchand:Correspondents and producers take you inside each case. Every Monday, listen to a new episode of 48 Hours, and then join me, 48 Hours correspondent Anne-Marie Green, every Tuesday for a new episode of Postmortem. Follow and listen to 48 Hours on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

15:51Andrew Marchand:Let's get back to sports media. these deals with NBC and with Netflix that baseball has, they're three-year deals. They're running up to 2028. What do you think baseball is looking for? It's certainly more than just, you know, viewership that Netflix provides or that NBC provides. And in fact, the leverage actually might be turned to where this is what Netflix is looking at to see if they're going to want to bid up and get a better package or if NBC wants to stick around.

16:26John:Yeah, I think it's good to have these big-time partners, but it's also a little bit dangerous because if it doesn't rate as well as other things, if you're Netflix, for example, Netflix, they love their Christmas Day games for the NFL. They love boxing, which does well. They're all about bringing in more subscription. They do have an advertising tier that they're growing. But these events, they largely have to be world events. And now baseball has some great stories to tell, especially in Japan. We already saw that Netflix and baseball, the WBC, the upcoming event in Japan will be on Netflix, not in the United States.

17:08John:You'll see that on Fox. But so I do think there is something to grow on for them. And then NBC and Peacock. I mean, I think baseball definitely wants broadcast. They have their World Series. Right now, it's on Fox. Could I see the World Series spread out in the next deals? I do. I think you could see two or three partners doing the World Series come 29, 30. And there could be a lot of players. I mean, the other thing that I'm sure we'll get to maybe, but the NFL has reopened their deal. and how much money will they gobble up from the big entities and how much will they have left? Not that they all have money to spend, but will they have the desire to spend after they have to give the NFL more money?

17:56John:But it will be an interesting experiment for me and you. I love seeing what these places do and what their presentations are like. So that's fun. For the fan trying to find things, they usually like their regular announcers. And so, you know, it's a little bit, a little too many musical chairs. I mean, if you're a team like the Yankees, you can have seven entities, you know, showing your games in seven days, seven different entities. Yeah.

18:24Andrew Marchand:And what's going to be particularly interesting about 2028 is that package of local rights that MLB is in the process of developing. They have most of the teams from FanDuel Sportsnet, from the Main Street Sports, are now the MLB holds those rights. The only holdouts right now look to be the Dodgers, of course. The Yankees with the Yes Network, we'll see what happens with them. We're on Nesson. The Red Sox are another top one there. And how Rob Manfred is able to convince or cajole or force these teams into joining the package, or whether he just goes out with a package that doesn't include New England or the Dodgers or the Cubs or some of those bigger teams is going to be something that I'm particularly interested in.

19:14Because I happen to think that that package, even without, it would be better with those teams.

19:20Andrew Marchand:But even without those teams, if you're somebody like ESPN Unlimited and you're trying to grow a subscriber base, what better way to grow a subscriber base than going to Kansas City and having what is, when they were on an RSN, the most watched program every night in the summer in Royals games. And if they have that, you can add subscribers off that, not saying that they would get all the people that watched it via bundled cable, but you go to different markets, even outside the biggest ones, there's still a lot of subscriptions and a lot of fans that they can hit. And I think that's a really powerful lever for Rob Manfred in baseball.

20:01John:Yes, but I just think, and it's complicated, they're going to have to be very smart about it because I do think it's part of a bundle. Now, you could argue that putting and rolling up all these teams together is a bundle where John Orand could watch every team's game. The problem is John Orand only really wants to watch the Orioles play every night. Now, sure, would you maybe watch a game here or there? But I don't think you're paying for that. So if you go at$20 per month, for example, or$25 per month, I think you want to somehow get into some kind of bundle and get that price down. I mean, I'm not sure you can get under$10 per month, but that's where I think you want to be.

20:47John:because I think one thing that baseball also has to be aware of, and I'm sure they will be, is that part of showing these games on TV is to get people to the ballpark. It's advertising. So you want distribution. Someone like YouTube is kind of interesting there. Not YouTube TV. YouTube, if you're in front of a paywall and you were just able to see it, no matter, you don't have to pay any subscription, would that be, and then you just go off advertising. Now, that might be a little bit, you might not get as much money, but over time, I mean, overall, I think you might because just the idea is you got to get in front of people.

21:34John:So that's the only thing I think when they come across their plan, all dirty streaming idea. yes it's a lot of people they have a great story to tell I've said this forever baseball has a better story to tell it's always comparison between the you know random Sunday night football game and the baseball playoffs and then people are like well NFL still does better but it's just the makeup of night of a 17 game regular season as compared to 162 game season and even the playoffs are multiple games to decide the winner So it doesn't make every game as important as one NFL game. So I think when you look at the numbers that we're looking at traditionally, regional sports networks, those are part of a bundle.

22:18John:So let's just say if you were in Pittsburgh or Boston and you had cable back in the day and the team wasn't doing well, there was no thought of, well, I'm going to cancel my cable because I'm not really watching them as often because they stink this year. when you have a streaming service and you have a bad team you do have a say why am I paying for this, I'm not watching it so I just think they're going to have to figure out and be creative and try to figure out is it better to be part of a bundle is it better to be an add-on how do we get the price down those are some things that and also on a business side you do want to price it to a point where you're making as much money as possible You basically want your most loyal fans to pay as much as possible.

23:06John:Even though it doesn't sound nice, that's basic business for subscription. And so it's complicated to me.

23:15Andrew Marchand:Yeah, even though I called it a great package, a really formidable package, I mean, let's be honest, the regional sports networks were such a boon specifically for baseball teams. And the amount of rights that they would pay to baseball teams, anything that they're going to get from digital is going to pale in comparison. And, you know, they're going to make more money from a national deal, undoubtedly. They're going to, you know, make more money from attendance and from, you know, going international. It's going to offset what these teams are losing from their local deals. This season, ESPN has given up its Sunday night baseball.