Today, the court proceedings occurred for several MLB teams, the Cincinnati Reds being one of them. They decided…they want out. Now, that is a little bit scary, considering they were generating an automatic $55-60M yearly through their RSN operated under Diamond Sports Group, known by many of us as Bally Sports OH, but it won’t be that way any longer.
What we know
Bally Sports OH rebranded to “FanDuel Sports Network” per the Diamond Sports Groups lawsuit about 3 weeks ago; we all thought that there was a great chance that the Reds would remain with Diamond Sports Group insisting that FanDuel would help bail them out. That ended up not being the case, and now…the Cincinnati Reds will be looking elsewhere. As we detailed in this article here, there’s several methods the Reds will begin looking at to getting their revenue back.
How will this affect the team in 2025?
It’s no secret that they’re going to lose a ton of revenue if they can’t secure a deal. As for Free Agency in 2025, it’s going to take a huge hit, too, because the Reds are losing $60,000,000 guaranteed dollars from their RSN deal; this means that they likely will not be seeking any “high profile” free agents, and will be operating with an extremely low budget, and essentially reliant on the MLB Revenue Sharing program to even afford their contractually bound “current” roster.
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Although not confirmed, I think it’s pretty safe to say the Reds knew that this was going to take place. If there’s any indication of that, they sold their stake in now FanDuel Sports Network for $1 – they were said to own up to 10% of it, so that’s a significant development. It is almost like they just said, “Yeah, I’m ready to move on,” and the Reds aren’t stupid when it comes to business. They might not be the best at building a winning team, but business wise, they’re arguably one of the best in the game and operate better than any other “small market” team in that sound – especially of those who haven’t provided fans a winning team.
So you’re the Reds, now what?
The Reds will have options when it comes to business going forward:
- Propose their broadcast rights to a new carrier (WGN, etc.)
- Take over the broadcast themselves via independent contractors (Bally Sports OH broadcast is already a group of independent contractors, for the most part, including producer) and then offer a monthly subscription service to fans
- Let MLB handle it while negotiations continue forward
It’s likely that they’ll go with option 1. But who? The best option, in our view, is Amazon. Amazon has reportedly been on the hunt for an MLB team – what better team to take over than the Reds? A small market, but robust market, full of fans from all walks of the earth. It’s also been said that Amazon was interested in an DTC (Direct to Consumer) platform as well. It could certainly be a start. But for 2025, we can still expect to watch our team, it’s just not likely to be how we have before. If you buy cable monthly it’s probably a good time to go ahead and cut the cord. I doubt we’ll be watching it on TV anymore.
Jim Day? John Sadak? Barry Larkin? Annie Sabo? Chris Welsh?
These 5 (and a couple others like Sam LeCure, etc.) ARE Reds employees, which give them a better chance at coming back than if they weren’t, at least in my opinion. The Reds are usually very courteous about their employees. If they find an RSN giving them similar $ per year, I think you could go ahead and book it that they’d all be coming back. If they can’t land a deal for a similar amount, I think that there’s a great chance they’d cut some staff. Let’s hope for their sake that they’ll be brought back. Annie Sabo posted an update of her own this afternoon.
