MLB announced Tuesday that the league itself will produce and broadcast home games for the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins next season after Diamond Sports Group decided not to renew its contracts with each of those teams.
In a press release, MLB said the household reach of Guardians games will increase by 235% in 2025 to 4.86 million households. The twins’ games will now reach 4.40 million homes, an increase of 307%. The expanded reach is due to the disappearance of blackouts: MLB produces and broadcasts the games instead of regional sports networks and makes them available through direct-to-consumer streaming, meaning they are not subject to regional blackouts.
The Brewers already had a direct-to-consumer streaming option available to fans, which MLB will continue to offer. The league will develop direct-to-consumer streaming options for the Guardians and Twins.
MLB did not expect Diamond Sports Group, which is currently in bankruptcy proceedings, to abandon any teams, much less so many teams at once. But DSG announced on October 2 that it would not renew the contracts of the Twins, Brewers, Guardians and Texas Rangers, which expired at the end of the 2024 season. DSG rejected the contracts of two other teams, the Detroit Tigers and the Tampa Bay Rays, and hinted that the contracts of five more teams, all of which expire in 2025, will need to be renegotiated.
While MLB may not have planned to produce and broadcast home games for the Brewers, Twins and Guardians next year, it is not a new arrangement for them. MLB arranged cable and satellite deals to broadcast home games for the Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres. They also developed direct-to-consumer streaming options for each team.
The Rangers won’t have their games produced or broadcast by MLB next year, but they also don’t want to be associated with Diamond Sports Group anymore. They are “considering their local media options for the 2025 season,” according to the MLB press release.