Brewers reach new deal with Diamond Sports Group

The Brewers announced Tuesday that they have reached a deal with Diamond Sports Group to handle in-market broadcasts for the 2025 season. Not surprisingly, the team hasn’t disclosed how much it will earn in royalties.

This is a reversal from the plans announced in October. At that time, Major League Baseball announced it would take over the broadcast market for Milwaukee. This came shortly after Diamond, the parent company of FanDuel Sports Networks (formerly Bally Sports Networks), announced it would walk away from its contract with the team. Diamond subsequently finalized a plan to avoid liquidation and emerge from bankruptcy to continue operations for at least another year.

Evidently, Diamond and the Brewers had kept communications open even as Milwaukee initially intended to direct broadcasts to the league. They found a mutually acceptable price — presumably lower than Diamond would have been owed under their previous agreement — to stay with the company for another season.

Brewers president of business operations Rick Schlesinger tells MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy that the team could sell the rights to MLB as early as the 2026 season.”Long term, whether it’s 2026 or later, I think MLB Media is where we’re ultimately going to land, and I think it’s going to be in the best interest of the fans and the teams and the league to get a model that provides for the widest possible distribution on the greatest number of platforms with the highest technology and the best economics for the league and the teams“Schlesinger said. “But we’re comfortable with the quality of production that Diamond Sports, Ballys and now FanDuel operate with, and we like the continuity. Our fans will find the games in the same places they found them last year.“

It is unknown whether this will have any impact on Milwaukee’s player payroll. The Brewers added just one major league free agent this offseason, signing the lefty Grant Wolfram to a deal that presumably came in around the league minimum. RosterResource estimates their payroll at around $118 million, just above the rough $116 million mark they finished the ’24 season with.

Diamond supports eight MLB teams for which he will broadcast in-market broadcasts: Angels, Braves, Brewers, Cardinals, Marlins, Rays, Royals and Tigers. The Guardians, Reds and Twins are outsourcing broadcasts to MLB. They are following in the footsteps of the Diamondbacks, Padres and Rockies, each of whom were aired by MLB last season. Diamond also abandoned his deal with the Rangers. The Texas organization is not expected to return Diamond or sign with MLB. Mac Engel of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram wrote this month that the Rangers were exploring ways to negotiate individual deals with various cable providers rather than contracting with an RSN.