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\n\tA day after nine Major League Baseball clubs officially terminated their contracts with Main Street Sports, the parent company of the FanDuel-branded RSNs<\/a> is attempting to bring the teams back into the fold.<\/p>\n \n\tMain Street\u2019s course-changing efforts are said to include offering revised terms to its departing MLB<\/a> partners, although given the endemic stressors on the regional distribution model, any new deals are likely to hinge on reduced fee structures.<\/p>\n \n\tAs first reported by The Athletic<\/em>\u2019s Evan Drellich, the dissolution of the RSN contracts effectively serves as a safeguarding measure in the event Main Street files for bankruptcy. The company of late had been negotiating a sale of its assets to DAZN, but those talks are said to have sputtered out. Scuttlebutt about the emergence of a second potential buyer remains unconfirmed.<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe remain in dialogue with all of our team and league partners as we progress discussions with potential strategic partners to enhance our long-term capital position,\u201d a Main Street Sports spokesperson wrote in a statement.<\/p>\n \n\tThree of the teams that have elected to walk away from their in-market media deals\u2014the Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals and Milwaukee Brewers\u2014had re-upped with Main Street<\/a> in early November. Also choosing to exit were the Atlanta Braves, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays.<\/p>\n \n\tThe ongoing erosion of the pay-TV bundle has continued to plague the RSN business, and while Main Street predecessor Diamond Sports Group<\/a> officially exited Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection<\/a> a year ago, court documents made it clear that a post-reorg cash crunch was all but inevitable. In one projection, Diamond\u2019s number crunchers estimated that total linear TV revenue would decline 19% in 2025 from $2.17 billion to $1.75 billion, while this year\u2019s take was expected to fall to $1.65 billion.<\/p>\n \n\tWhile advertising dollars were largely expected to hold up, far more significant losses were thought to be in store on the distribution front. Per an unaudited projected income statement filed with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Houston in April 2024, DSG anticipated that carriage fees would plummet 28% between 2024 and 2026, which would work out to a net loss of $498 million in distribution revenue. DSG had projected a more moderate 5% dip in advertising revenue over the same period, which translates to an anticipated loss of $20 million in sales.<\/p>\n \n\tThe ongoing exodus from the legacy pay-TV bundle continued apace last year, as an estimated 5 million cable\/satellite\/telcoTV subscribers cut the cord. Per MoffettNathanson estimates, the bundled headcount fell another 10% to 43.2 million households in the third quarter, reducing penetration to just 34% of all U.S. TV homes. Even when virtual MVPDs are blended with the traditional TV platforms, the overall tally (64.8 million subs) represents just 50.6% of homes that use television.<\/p>\n \n\tAt the industry\u2019s peak in 2010, when some 105 million customers mailed out paper checks to cover their monthly TV bills, nine in 10 homes subscribed to a pay-TV package.<\/p>\n \n\tDespite the steady subscriber losses, the FanDuel RSNs saw their MLB ratings improve by 18% in 2025, as in-game coverage averaged 1.5 million viewers across all platforms. Per internal Main Street estimates, MLB games last season accounted for more than 2.8 billion minutes of consumption, a figure which marked a doubling on the year-ago results.<\/p>\n \n\tThe incredible shrinking bundle has posed an existential threat to the RSNs long before Diamond filed for bankruptcy in March 2023. In an early filing with the Houston court, the company stated that it had lost 22 million subscribers, or 35% of its customer base, since 2019. While the vMVPDs have in some measure helped claw back a chunk of pay-TV apostates, most of those slimmed-down platforms don\u2019t have carriage deals in place with any RSNs. In other words, Main Street doesn\u2019t necessarily benefit from the recapturing of consumers via alternative video services.<\/p>\n \n\tMLB commissioner Rob Manfred<\/a> on Thursday addressed the RSN situation during an appearance on WFAN\u2019s The Carton Show<\/em>. \u201cNo matter what happens, Major League Baseball is in a position to put all of the games on locally and to make a digital streaming product available in-market for those fans,\u201d Manfred said. They will never miss a game.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tBaseball first began bailing out some of its RSN-affiliated clubs in 2023, when it assumed control<\/a> of the San Diego Padres\u2019 local broadcasts after Diamond missed a payment. Other teams that have since found shelter under the MLB Media umbrella include the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies and Minnesota Twins. Meanwhile, in the wake of the shuttering of ROOT Sports, the Seattle Mariners last fall announced their intention to cede local distribution to MLB before the start of the 2026 season.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n