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It will be a battle for sure, and probably a huge part of the CBA negotiations. I'm not sure the Red Sox and Yankees are really in that great of a spot if they maintain the status quo. The hundreds of millions they were getting in carriage fee money is drying up fast and will get worse when ESPN and others go standalone this year. What's the best case scenario for those teams if they have to rely on a $100/year DTC product? 200-300,000 subscribers each? That's only 20-30 million/year and no exposure to casual fans.The current model is pretty ugly for everyone but the Dodgers.
The Yankees still have to pay half of their local money into the revenue sharing pot though, so there is some leverage there to get them on-board. Also, if they sign their own streaming deal, they won't be able to hide that money in a team owned RSN any more.
NBC Sports Bay Area, which carries the SF Giants, is going on Peacock for cord cutters, so you can get it even if you don't have YTTV or regular cable. Will be interesting to see what the Nats do once they're free from MASN.
Outside of the MASN teams, the Astros and Mariners are the only teams left without a standalone option. Plans were in the works to offer a standalone app this year, but who knows now. It would be rather shocking if there isn't some kind of standalone offering in 2026.
