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MLB will produce local games for Guardians, Brewers and Twins
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MLB will produce local games for Guardians, Brewers and Twins

Major League Baseball announced Tuesday that it will produce and distribute local games for the Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Minnesota Twins for next season, signaling that all three teams will split from the bankrupt Diamond Sports Group.

The Texas Rangers will also split from Diamond, which has been in the 19-month Chapter 11 reorganization process, but are considering other local media options for the 2025 season, MLB announced.

The Guardians, Brewers and Twins will join the Colorado Rockies, Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres as teams under the MLB umbrella. The Diamondbacks and Padres were dropped by Diamond last year; the Rockies were previously affiliated with Warner Bros. Discovery, which shut down or sold their regional sports networks at the end of 2023.

MLB, which launched a local media division when Diamond filed for bankruptcy, will negotiate cable and satellite distribution deals and make local streaming available through MLB.tv. By joining MLB and thus not being bound by the territorial rights associated with distributors, blackouts will be eliminated. MLB projects that games for the Guardians and Twins — teams that, unlike the Brewers, did not have a local direct-to-consumer streaming option — will see a 235% and 307% increase in reach, respectively.

The Guardians, Twins, Brewers and Rangers all had expiring deals with Diamond. Eight other teams — the Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Angels, Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins, St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals — are still in limbo.

Diamond recently filed a reorganization plan that calls for divesting broadcast rights to every team in its portfolio except the Braves, although the company is renegotiating terms with the other teams. A confirmation date, when a bankruptcy judge will determine whether Diamond will continue as a reorganized company, has been set for Nov. 14-15 in Houston.