Major Changes Reportedly Coming to Seattle Mariners Television Deal in 2025
How you consume Seattle Mariners baseball could look very different in 2025.
As part of a lengthy piece in 'The Athletic' on Tuesday that talked about the future of baseball's television deals, it was reported that the M's (kind of) now fall into the category of teams that will have their games produced by Major League Baseball.
The details are still scarce at this point, but here's the note from Evan Drellich, with a quote from commissioner Rob Manfred:
The Seattle Mariners are partly in MLB's in-house broadcasting group, which is up to... 7.5 teams? “It’s just complicated because they have distribution agreements that ran longer,” Manfred said. “We’ll do the production for them, not clear how much more.”
The Seattle Mariners are partly in MLB's in-house broadcasting group, which is up to... 7.5 teams? “It’s just complicated because they have distribution agreements that ran longer,” Manfred said. “We’ll do the production for them, not clear how much more.” https://t.co/8Hv0biDpv5
— Evan Drellich (@EvanDrellich) November 19, 2024
Does this mean that Mariners games will still be available on ROOT Sports? Does that mean that in addition to ROOT Sports, fans will be able to buy a blackout-free MLB.tv package to watch the M's? That hasn't been disclosed yet, but it's something to watch for. A standalone package could mean fans could opt into a cheaper cable package and then pay separately for the M's.
Furthermore, what is the impact of this move on payroll and revenue? Are the M's going to lose television revenue, which negatively impacts the team's payroll? Or, is the team going to save money by ceding control of the broadcast, which could help them dedicate more money to the on-field product?
More details will come out about this in the coming weeks, and we'll have the latest when they do.
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