While seven of Main Street Sports Group\u2019s nine departed baseball teams are expected to broadcast their games through MLB Media, sources told SBJ Thursday that the final two — the Angels and Braves — are in discussions to form their own networks that could potentially involve the NHL\u2019s Kings and the NBA\u2019s Hawks, respectively.<\/p>\n
Sources said the talks are only in the exploratory stage, and — because the Angels\u2019 current FanDuel Sports Network West is a joint venture with Main Street — Angels owner Arte Moreno would first have to buy Main Street out of FanDuel Sports Network West to make it his own.<\/p>\n
Once accomplished, the Angels would then offer the Kings — owned by Phil Anschutz\u2019s Anschutz Entertainment Group and also broadcast on FanDuel Sports Network West –a chance to slide over to the Angels\u2019 network while receiving an undisclosed rights fee, sources said. The Kings would not have an ownership stake in the Angels\u2019 RSN.<\/p>\n
The Angels — who sources said have asked MLB for more time before deciding whether to opt in to MLB Media — did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Kings declined comment, while Main Street would also not comment on whether the Angels are in talks to buy them out of FanDuel Sports Network West. <\/p>\n
In the Braves\u2019 case, sources said the franchise — whose parent company is Liberty Media — has initiated talks with the Hawks (owned by Tony Ressler) about pairing up to create a single broadcast home in the South.<\/p>\n
While the Angels\u2019 venture would just include the Kings (not the Clippers), sources believe it would not be out of the realm for multiple teams to join the Braves\u2019 prospective network. Speculation is that the team could create a broadcast conglomerate of about 12 Gray television stations throughout the Southeast, especially since the team currently has broad distribution throughout Tennessee and could conceivably add the Nashville Predators to the network. <\/p>\n
The Braves and Hawks both declined comment Thursday night.<\/p>\n
If the Braves\u2019 platform came to fruition, it would essentially be a multi-team RSN controlled by the Braves, although sources said the Braves have also contemplated a deal with Amazon or Apple to house their local broadcasts, though that is unconfirmed.<\/p>\n
The viability, depth and sheer volume of the Angels\u2019 and Braves\u2019 plans are unclear. But sources said the Braves and Angels would envision their networks launching in time for the 2026 MLB season that begins in roughly 50 days.<\/p>\n
Because the Angels would be technically taking over a Main Street RSN, they could televise the Kings\u2019 games right away this season, although there would hardly be any games remaining on the schedule by April.<\/p>\n
In the Hawks\u2019 case, if the Braves\u2019 venture played out, their games wouldn\u2019t switch over until likely the 2026-27 season.<\/p>\n
Of the nine MLB teams that have exited Main Street, the Cardinals, Brewers, Marlins, Reds, Royals and Rays have either officially or unofficially committed to have their games produced and distributed by MLB. The Tigers are also expected to follow suit. But because the Ilitch Family also owns the Red Wings, sources said its front office is in complex talks to have MLB perhaps help operate and distribute the Red Wings\u2019 games, as well — which is the purported holdup.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, NBA and NHL teams still expect Main Street to wind down on April 12, the final day of the basketball season, and are beginning to doubt they will receive another rights fee check this season. Sources said Main Street is definitely working through the wind down, a process that involves creditors, lenders and board meetings, which is why there have been no definitive answers for the teams so far.<\/p>\n
For that reason, sources said NBA and NHL teams are still bracing for the worst-case scenario, an immediate liquidation, which would mean FanDuel Sports Network broadcasts would go dark in-season.<\/p>\n
Sources have said Main Street, now without baseball, is still trying to create a path to winddown and no liquidation. But NBA and NHL teams know it is ultimately the creditors who make that decision, and they are preparing for what they call a cliff scenario of Main Street going dark at any time. If that happened, NBA games would likely be shifted to League Pass and NHL contests to the leaugue\u2019s Game Center app.<\/p>\n
Either way, NBA and NHL teams are already vetting plans for next season, where sources said they see no scenario in which Main Street will be in business. For next year, those teams could go with their respective leagues or create contingency plans with other outlets such as ViewLift, Kiswe and Victory+.<\/p>\n
Staff writer Mike Mazzeo contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While seven of Main Street Sports Group\u2019s nine departed baseball teams are expected to broadcast their games through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2390],"tags":[291,5,192,28168,1165,446,3223,774,56,3224,3222,4],"class_list":["post-556964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-los-angeles-angels","tag-angels","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-hawks","tag-la","tag-la-angels","tag-laangels","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-angels","tag-losangeles","tag-losangelesangels","tag-mlb"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116020941567108511","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}