Milwaukee Brewers To Remain On Fan Duel Sports -- Now contract terminated

[YelichPosse]

2 hours ago, wallus said:

I look forward to the Gruber Sports Network

One call, that’s all! 

[nate82]

4 hours ago, wallus said:

I look forward to the Gruber Sports Network

One Channel, that's all!

[patrickgpe]

Personally I was fine with them being on Fan Duel. I could watch them on tablets or TV with my Direct TV Stream. I would upgrade my package in the summer months to get them and go back to the standard package October 1st. I would be shocked if we didn't end up paying more than we did last season but time will tell. 

[greeg35]

On 1/9/2026 at 8:34 AM, patrickgpe said:

Personally I was fine with them being on Fan Duel. I could watch them on tablets or TV with my Direct TV Stream. I would upgrade my package in the summer months to get them and go back to the standard package October 1st. I would be shocked if we didn't end up paying more than we did last season but time will tell. 

Agree.  I know this doesn't mean anything to everyone, but I really liked being able to pay for one service and watch the Bucks too.

[ClosetBrewerFan]

The title of this thread really needs to be corrected.  I thought there was a change and they went back to Fan Duel.  I think that is still a possibility but the Brewers will get a lot less than last year if they do.  Though they are likely to get much much less if they have MLB run the televised games.  Padres went from $47M on fan duel to $17M on MLB when they switched.

[Samurai Bucky]

Sounds like Fubo might be in the running...

https://awfulannouncing.com/local-networks/main-street-dazn-deal-dead-fubo-rumored-new-bidder-nba-nhl-prepare-shutdown.html

[markedman5]

 

[owbc]

Hooray, we’re free! 

[nate82]

The death kneel of the regional sports network and hopefully blackout restrictions.

[patrickgpe]

 

55 minutes ago, owbc said:

Hooray, we’re free! 

before we are celebrating, lets see how much the streaming plans are and what cable channels they are on. The devil is in the details.  

[RobertCrawley]

2 minutes ago, patrickgpe said:

 

before we are celebrating, lets see how much the streaming plans are and what cable channels they are on. The devil is in the details.  

Exactly. If there's money to be made, someone will figure it out.

Full announcement: 

https://www.mlb.com/brewers/news/brewers-games-to-be-distributed-by-mlb-in-2026

[MrTPlush]

Yah, I doubt this is much of a win in the grand scheme. At least from a financial standpoint for the franchise. 
 

It’s like celebrating getting $100 of unemployment after losing your job. I guess that is better than $0…but idk if we should go around popping confetti.

Were blackouts even a problem anymore for Brewers fans? In market fans could buy the subscription and out of staters either had the same option or MLB.tv?

[long ball]

2 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

Yah, I doubt this is much of a win in the grand scheme. At least from a financial standpoint for the franchise. 
 

It’s like celebrating getting $100 of unemployment after losing your job. I guess that is better than $0…but idk if we should go around popping confetti.

Were blackouts even a problem anymore for Brewers fans? In market fans could buy the subscription and out of staters either had the same option or MLB.tv?

Ya I saw that teams get about 50% of what they were previously getting through the RSN on average. So this is likely a short term hit to the revenue which stinks for a team who is already in the bottom third in terms of player payroll. 
 

[patrickgpe]

7 minutes ago, RobertCrawley said:

Exactly. If there's money to be made, someone will figure it out.

Full announcement: 

https://www.mlb.com/brewers/news/brewers-games-to-be-distributed-by-mlb-in-2026

for example, last year WWE pay per views were on peacock and it was 9.99 / month. Now they are streaming on ESPN + for 34.99.

I would imagine you would need a MLB.tv account and then have to do the "local team" upgrade.  With Main Street Sports no longer paying for rights, that money needs to be made somehwere.

[RobertCrawley]

5 minutes ago, patrickgpe said:

for example, last year WWE pay per views were on peacock and it was 9.99 / month. Now they are streaming on ESPN + for 34.99.

I would imagine you would need a MLB.tv account and then have to do the "local team" upgrade.  With Main Street Sports no longer paying for rights, that money needs to be made somehwere.

Yep. The official announcement touts all the improvements we'll see in the coverage, which I assume is laying the groundwork for a cost increase.

[jw5511986]

I have paid for and used MLB.TV when previously living out of market, at a minimum it should function better than the stupid RSL app did.

[owbc]

3 hours ago, long ball said:

Ya I saw that teams get about 50% of what they were previously getting through the RSN on average. So this is likely a short term hit to the revenue which stinks for a team who is already in the bottom third in terms of player payroll. 
 

Two reasons why this is unequivocally good for us:

1. We had the lowest local TV revenue in MLB, so if everyone drops by 50%, it means that we are closing the revenue gap relative to the competition. We had the least to lose from the old system. 

2. Killing the RSN paradigm moves us closer to a world where local TV revenue will be shared equally amongst all the teams. That world is the one where the Brewers will be on a level playing field. 

In the interim, we'll have a situation where roughly 20/30 teams are stuck with MLB and the other 10 will be printing ginormous sums of money from their local TV contracts. In the past, we were stuck in last place because the mid-market teams were aligned with the big markets and nobody cared about the small markets. Now we're in a situation where the mid-markets and even some of the fairly large markets are on our side, fighting for a piece of the juicy RSN pie that the Dodgers/Yankees/etc are earning. That will bode well for us moving forward. 

For 2026, streaming Brewers games will be $19.99/month on the MLB app like it is for everyone else in this situation. 

[greeg35]

I'd be a bit more perturbed by this if there were any chances I'd want to watch the Bucks in the foreseeable future.  As it is, I'll just watch more non-brewer baseball.

[TURBO]

This is not a good thing for us cable, TDS, etc,  subscribers, who will now probably have to pay for a streaming service, rather than watching it free with our cable subscriptions.

I think this sucks if I have to pay a dime more for my TV package, to get something I've watched for free the past decade+.

[nate82]

1 hour ago, TURBO said:

This is not a good thing for us cable, TDS, etc,  subscribers, who will now probably have to pay for a streaming service, rather than watching it free with our cable subscriptions.

I think this sucks if I have to pay a dime more for my TV package, to get something I've watched for free the past decade+.

The Dbacks have a local channel and have already gone through this.  It probably will be on the same channel as it was previously.   I doubt your package will need to be changed.  Also you never watched for free.  The regional sports networks were always part of the sports package so you paid for it.  It wasn’t for free.

[patrickgpe]

3 hours ago, TURBO said:

This is not a good thing for us cable, TDS, etc,  subscribers, who will now probably have to pay for a streaming service, rather than watching it free with our cable subscriptions.

I think this sucks if I have to pay a dime more for my TV package, to get something I've watched for free the past decade+.

Based on what the Reds announced today, and assuming it’s the same as what the Brewers will do, you can get the MLB,tv brewers app for 20 bucks a month or 100 for the season or continue to watch on the service you did in 2025. Doesn’t seem like much is changing 

[Soupy]

If the Bucks trade The Freak losing the Bucks won’t hurt much

[jw5511986]

4 hours ago, TURBO said:

This is not a good thing for us cable, TDS, etc,  subscribers, who will now probably have to pay for a streaming service, rather than watching it free with our cable subscriptions.

I think this sucks if I have to pay a dime more for my TV package, to get something I've watched for free the past decade+.

As someone without a cable subscription who didn't want to pay for a subpar app experience, I have to say bully for me.

[MrTPlush]

15 hours ago, owbc said:

Two reasons why this is unequivocally good for us:

1. We had the lowest local TV revenue in MLB, so if everyone drops by 50%, it means that we are closing the revenue gap relative to the competition. We had the least to lose from the old system. 

2. Killing the RSN paradigm moves us closer to a world where local TV revenue will be shared equally amongst all the teams. That world is the one where the Brewers will be on a level playing field. 

In the interim, we'll have a situation where roughly 20/30 teams are stuck with MLB and the other 10 will be printing ginormous sums of money from their local TV contracts. In the past, we were stuck in last place because the mid-market teams were aligned with the big markets and nobody cared about the small markets. Now we're in a situation where the mid-markets and even some of the fairly large markets are on our side, fighting for a piece of the juicy RSN pie that the Dodgers/Yankees/etc are earning. That will bode well for us moving forward. 

For 2026, streaming Brewers games will be $19.99/month on the MLB app like it is for everyone else in this situation. 

1) RSNs were largely dominated by smaller markets. Look at the list of current MLB ran teams and the new ones joining it. We don’t need to close the revenue gap with those teams. I actually greatly disagree we had the least to lose. RSNs sucked, but they also gave financial stability and long term contracts. For teams working with smaller margins, that is a pretty important thing to have . Especially if we are shelling out contracts longer than 2 years.

2) This is probably the only hope…that this is so terrible for a chunk of teams it pushes change. The problem though is this news is probably phenomenal for 10 teams minimum and another 5-10 it is probably a wash. Not sure you could get the votes to create a lockout.

[TURBO]

12 hours ago, nate82 said:

The Dbacks have a local channel and have already gone through this.  It probably will be on the same channel as it was previously.   I doubt your package will need to be changed.  Also you never watched for free.  The regional sports networks were always part of the sports package so you paid for it.  It wasn’t for free.

I realize I didn't actually watch for free, nothing is free, I meant it was part of my package with no extra costs for streaming an outside service.