MLB will air local games for Guardians, Brewers and Twins next season

Major League Baseball announced Tuesday it will produce and distribute local broadcasts for the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins next year. All three teams had contracts with Diamond Sports Group that expired at the end of the regular season.

The Texas Rangers, whose deal also expired last month, also announced they will no longer be partnering with Diamond. They are assessing their options for next season.

The addition of the Guardians, Brewers and Twins means MLB will be handling the production and distribution of at least six teams going into 2025.

MLB took over broadcasts of the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks during the 2023 season and the Colorado Rockies this year.

Rick Schlesinger, the president of business operations for the Brewers, said he expects more teams could be partnering with MLB by the opening of next season.

“This has been a long process. It’s a very deliberative process," he said. "We’ve done this through a lot of work, a lot of analysis. I think this is going to be a huge game changer for us, for our content.”

By taking over the broadcasts, MLB expects to increase the market reach of its teams by at least 2 million households in each market. The Diamondbacks went from being available in 930,000 households on a regional sports network to 5.6 million homes through a combination of being on local cable systems, satellite and direct-to-consumer streaming.

“With the media landscape continuing to evolve, Major League Baseball is committed to serving our fans by ensuring they can see their favorite clubs, removing blackouts where we can, and ultimately growing the reach of our games,” Noah Garden, MLB deputy commissioner for business and media, said in a statement.

The Twins took a public relations hit in Minnesota for cutting their 2024 player payroll coming off a division title and their first postseason series win in 22 years, in light of the reduced rights fee coming from Diamond. They will lose the rights fee altogether with this MLB-produced model, but team president Dave St. Peter said this announcement would not have an effect on player spending for the upcoming season.

“We’ve spent a tremendous amount of time with Major League Baseball trying to better understand this marketplace, trying to better understand what a model like this will ultimately provide to the team. We also have studied closely what’s happened in San Diego, in Arizona and in Colorado. We’ve gotten comfortable in those economics. They are where they are," St. Peter said.

"We do expect that there will be a reduction in local revenue coming to the Twins in 2025. I think that’s a fact. That said, over the long haul we have tremendous confidence in our content and believe, while maybe we’ll take a dip for ’25, that over time the viewership and those economics related to that viewership will increase.”

Cleveland games were available on approximately 1.45 million households on its regional sports network. That reach is expected to increase 235% to 4.86 million households. Minnesota's will go up 307% from 1.08 million homes to 4.4 million.

Schlesinger said the Brewers had 800,000 households that could receive games this past season, but he also expects to see significant growth with the new model.

“From a fan perspective, it’s great because you’re going to have total access and no blackouts," he said. “There’s a lot of staffing, a lot of infrastructure, a lot of decisions have to be made, a lot of people to be hired, a lot of sponsors to contact. This is the right time to do this. It’s a good jumping point, platform to make sure when the calendar turns to 2025, we’re already fully immersed in this and that we know when the first game starts, that we’re ready to go and the product’s going to be outstanding.”

MLB could be taking over more teams as Diamond Sports Group continues to go through bankruptcy proceedings. The nation's largest owner of regional sports networks could be down to doing only Atlanta Braves games in 2025.

The operator of the Bally Sports regional networks presented its reorganization plan in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston last week. As part of the reorganization, Diamond plans to void the contracts of the Detroit Tigers and Tampa Bay Rays and to attempt to rework the deals of the five franchises that are partial owners of their regional sports networks — the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins and St. Louis Cardinals.

St. Peter said he expects more teams to sign onto the model in the future.

“Starting to build that direct-to-consumer foundation, which clearly is the future of the way our games will be distributed — it’s time to get on with that and we’re excited about that,” St. Peters said. “Our ownership understands the consequences of that, but I think over time there’s way more upside than short-term downside.”

A final hearing on Diamond's reorganization plan is scheduled for Nov. 14. Diamond also has the rights to 13 NBA and eight NHL teams.

Diamond Sports Group and Sinclair Broadcast Group bought the regional sports networks from The Walt Disney Co. for nearly $10 billion in 2019. Disney was required by the Department of Justice to sell the networks for its acquisition of 21st Century Fox’s film and television assets to be approved.

AP sports writers Dave Campbell in Minneapolis and Steve Megargee in Milwaukee contributed to this story.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

FILE - A fan takes photos during the seventh inning of a baseball game between the Minnesota Twins and the Kansas City Royals Sunday, Sept. 8, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)

The Cleveland Guardians hold a baseball workout in Cleveland, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024, in preparation for the American League Division Series against the Detroit Tigers. (AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)

Bally reporter, Hanna Yates, broadcasts her pregame with fans standing behind her waiting for autographs before the start of a baseball game between the New York Mets and the Atlanta Braves, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Jason Allen)

MLB will air local games for Guardians, Brewers and Twins beginning next season

MLB will air local games for Guardians, Brewers and Twins beginning next season

MAGDEBURG, Germany (AP) — Germany on Saturday was still in shock and struggling to understand the suspect behind the attack in the city of Magdeburg.

Identified by local media as 50-year-old Taleb A., a psychiatry and psychotherapy specialist, authorities said he has been living in Germany for two decades. He was arrested on site after plowing a black BMW into a Christmas market crowded with holiday shoppers Friday evening, killing at least five people and wounding about 200 others.

Prominent German terrorism expert Peter Neumann posted on X that he had yet to come across a suspect in an act of mass violence with that profile.

Taleb’s X account is filled with tweets and retweets focusing on anti-Islam themes and criticism of the religion while sharing congratulatory notes to Muslims who left the faith. He also described himself as a former Muslim.

He was critical of German authorities, saying they had failed to do enough to combat the “Islamism of Europe.”

He has also voiced support for the far-right and anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.

Some described Taleb as an activist who helped Saudi women flee their homeland. Recently, he seemed focused on his theory that German authorities have been targeting Saudi asylum seekers.

Neumann, the terrorism expert, wrote: “After 25 years in this ‘business’ you think nothing could surprise you anymore. But a 50-year-old Saudi ex-Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists — that really wasn’t on my radar."

On Saturday, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters: “At this point, we can only say for sure that the perpetrator was evidently Islamophobic – we can confirm that. Everything else is a matter for further investigation and we have to wait.”

A German-based organization called Athiest Refugee Relief said the alleged attacker was not a part of the group and claimed that he made “numerous accusations and claims” against it and former board members, which it said were false.

“We distance ourselves from him in the strongest terms," the group said in a statement on its website, adding that members of Atheist Refugee Relief filed a criminal complaint against him in 2019 following “the most foul slander and verbal attacks."

An image taken from a video shows police officers arresting a suspect after car drove into a crowd at the Christmas market in Magdeburg, Germany, Friday Dec. 20, 2024. (TNN/DPA via AP)

A person stands by flowers and candles placed outside St. John's Church near a Christmas Market, where a car drove into a crowd on Friday evening, in Magdeburg, Germany, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)