MLB has announced that it will produce and distribute local games for the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers, and Minnesota Twins during the 2025 season. This new arrangement aims to provide fans with more options to watch their favorite teams either on television or through digital streaming.
Meanwhile, the Texas Rangers have decided not to partner with Diamond Sports Group anymore and are currently exploring their local media options for the upcoming 2025 season.
Last season, the Guardians reached approximately 1.45 million households through its RSN (Regional Sports Network), while the Twins reached around 1.08 million homes. However, with MLB’s direct-to-consumer streaming option, Cleveland’s games can now potentially reach up to about 4.86 million households (+235%), and Minnesota expands its reach to approximately 4.40 million homes (+307%). On the other hand, Milwaukee already had a direct-to-consumer streaming option available in its previous local media arrangement and will continue to do so under MLB moving forward.
The production and distribution arrangements for these three teams will be similar to how MLB handled games for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, and San Diego Padres during the previous 2024 season. In that season, MLB negotiated cable and satellite distribution agreements while also providing direct-to-consumer streaming options through platforms like Dbacks.TV, Padres.TV, and Rockies.TV.
Noah Garden, MLB Deputy Commissioner of Business and Media stated that Major League Baseball is committed to serving fans by ensuring they can watch their favorite clubs without blackouts whenever possible while expanding game coverage overall. He expressed pride in bringing Guardians’, Brewers’, and Twins’ games to their passionate fan bases with high-quality production similar to what was seen in Arizona, Colorado, and San Diego.
MLB’s locally produced games last year included special features typically associated with nationally televised broadcasts such as Ump Cam footage live look-ins at the MLB Replay Operations Center Wire Cam shots on-field locations for pregame/postgame coverage a new RF camera offering a shallow depth-of-field look increased access including in-game player interviews.
Billy Chambers who serves as MLB Executive Vice President of Local Media emphasized that aside from expanding reach Major League Baseball is utilizing resources to enhance production quality by incorporating new technology improving picture quality providing better access both on-field action as well as player interactions.
It is worth noting that since 2009 Major League Baseball has owned and operated MLB Network which has been praised for its content won numerous National Sports Emmy Awards across various categories produced live games over sixteen seasons making it an established platform within baseball broadcasting landscape Additionally baseball fans streamed a record-breaking total of 14.5 billion minutes of live baseball games/content via MLB.TV in 2024 alone marking significant growth compared previous years
Further details regarding where/how fans can watch these local games will be made available closer to the start of the highly anticipated 2025 season