Major League Baseball's Kansas City Royals will join the Detroit Tigers, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays in participating in a groundbreaking new direct-to-consumer live-sports streaming service being launched by Sinclair Broadcast Group (Bally Sports Plus).

But according to the paywalled Kansas City Star, which broke the news about the Royals, Sinclair's Bally Sports-branded streaming service won't launch until the summer, with the 2022 MLB season already months in. 

Also read: Tradition-Bound Baseball Is Streaming Into the Future

Speaking to reporters amid the Royals' spring-training activities in Surprise, Arizona earlier this week, team Chairman and CEO John Sherman noted the need for franchises like the Royals to be able to reach their fans via streaming. 

“Reach is more important than revenue for us in baseball," said Sherman, who was quoted by several Kansas City media outlets, including the Star. "... We want to make it easy for people to connect and see our games.”

In blessing Sinclair's DTC plan, Sherman and the Royals are deviating from the desires of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who last winter expressed doubt that Sinclair could assemble a critical mass of sports rights needed to hoist its DTC ambitions. Manfred wants to see MLB stream its games more, too, but he prefers a more unified approach among the league's franchises. 

At least right now, reach isn't great for the smaller-market Royals, coming off a middling 74-88 season in 2021, and rarely shown on national TV. 

That leaves Sinclair-owned Bally Sports Kansas City, the regional sports network that the Royals license their local TV rights to, as the main viewing option for local fans. But the number of pay TV operators carrying that RSN is dwindling. 

Google Fiber is winding down its TV service and will no longer be available in the region after April. Satellite TV operator Dish Network decided not to include the Bally Sports RSN in its renewal deal in November to re-up retransmission rights to 144 Sinclair stations. And notably, a one-month negotiating extension with Charter Communications, carved out 22 day ago, is coming up. 

As for streaming Royals games, the options are down to virtual pay TV service DirecTV Stream, with major vMVPDs YouTube TV, Hulu + Live TV and fuboTV no longer carrying Ball Sports channels. 

Manfred's desires aside, other teams are arriving at the same conclusions about "reach" that Sherman has come to.

Last week, for example, it was reported that the Chicago Cubs -- who are 50-50 stakeholders with Sinclair in RSN Marquee Sports Network -- are aiming to hoist their own DTC service by 2023, with Sinclair being a potential partner. 

As for Sinclair, it assembled a collection of 19 Bally Sports RSNs, managed by the company's Diamond Sports subsidiary, mainly through side acquisitions of the Fox Sports channels amid Disney's huge purchase of Fox. 

But it all came with an accumulation of debt, totaling nearly $10 billion.

Sinclair has pitched DTC distribution to its investors as a salve for its debt problem. And it has defied the skepticism of equity analysts in carving out DTC streaming rights deals with NBA and NHL teams licensed under its Bally Sports umbrella.

With the addition of the Royals, Sinclair is one more MLB team closer, as well. ■

Typically, the first weekend in May is considered a big one for television sports viewers as the Kentucky Derby battles with the second round of the National Basketball Association Playoffs, the settling in of a new baseball season and a major pay-per-view boxing match — and all of that will, indeed, take place one month from now.

But for cable sports networks, the first full week of April is almost just as action-packed, as industry executives hope several major events will have viewers kicking back in front of their big-screen TV to watch cable-exclusive events.

Tonight (April 4), TBS will air the Villanova-North Carolina NCAA men’s basketball tournament championship game — the denoument of March Madness — marking the first time the title contest will not be televised by a broadcast network. (It had been a staple for co-rightsholder CBS since 1982.)

While TBS, TNT and truTV have been airing many of the early-round tournament events for years — and last year TBS set a ratings record with its telecast of the semifinal Final Four round — it’s still a feather in cable’s cap to have both the College Football Playoff championship, currently on ESPN, and now the college basketball finals on TBS.

As for the potential loss of viewers in moving the game from a broadcast channel to a network that viewers need a subscription to watch, Turner president David Levy said that, in the viewer’s mind, there’s no difference between cable and broadcast — sports fans will find the content they want to watch on whatever channel or platform it’s on.

Meanwhile, ESPN last night (April 3) threw out the first pitch of the new baseball season with its New York Mets- Kansas City Royals telecast — the first ever Opening Day rematch of the previous World Series participants. The telecast was one of three Opening Day games for the 24-hour sports programmer, which will join various regional sports networks around the country in televising a dozen opening day games on Monday, even as RSN carriage battles involving the New York Yankees (YES Network vs. Comcast) and the Los Angeles Dodgers (over SportsNet LA), continue to make headlines.

Finally on Saturday (April 9), HBO Sports will distribute the Manny Pacquiao-Timothy Bradley Jr. pay-per-view fight, which many ringside observers believe will be the last of Pacquiao’s storied career. Prior to Pacquiao’s fight last May against Floyd Mayweather, which earned a record-breaking $400 million in PPV revenue, the multi-division champion from the Phillippines had generated a whopping $741 million in PPV revenue over his career, according to Forbes — the second-most ever, behind Mayweather.

If indeed this is Pacquiao’s last time stepping into the PPV ring, he will leave some mighty big shoes to fill. Middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez will continue his climb to assume the pound-for-pound PPV championship mantle held by both Pacquiao and the now-retired Mayweather when he steps into the ring May 7 against Amir Kahn.

But that’s a month from now. This week is cable’s big sports play.

At first blush, MLB’s recent agreement allowing Fox regional sports networks to stream live baseball games within their respective markets may look like a score for sports fans looking to cut the cord on the traditional cable package.

But in reality, the deal is more like a sacrifice bunt advancing the value of the cable bundle to baseball fans in select local markets. MLB’s new digital pitch allows viewers to move from first base where they could only access their local baseball team’s games on their big screen TVs to second base where they can now watch local games on digital platforms -- but not without a swing from the Fox regionals. Viewers have to be authenticated by Fox and cable operators through their cable subscriptions to access local games online.

In another strikeout for cable cutters, subscribers to MLB’s Extra Innings live game out-of-market package will not be able to access their local team’s games online though the reported three-year deal. 

The ability for in-market fans of the world champion Kansas City Royals, New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, Texas Rangers or the 11 other MLB teams with Fox Sports regional network deals to watch games on their iPads, phones and computers is a major development for the league and Fox Sports.

For distributors, the deal further enhances the value of the cable bundle to devoted local sports fans who can’t get enough of their local baseball teams. To put it another way, providing online access to Fox Sports’ live telecasts of regional baseball games allows operators to hit a digital home run for their subscribers.

With the first pitch of the 2015 World Series just hours away, Fox is pretty much sold out for the first four games, although inventory is still being sold on a contingency basis for avails that could result from pitching changes and possible extra innings.

Neil Mulcahy, executive VP, sales, Fox Sports Media Group, said ad sales for the New York Mets vs. Kansas City Royals series are stronger at this point than they were for last year’s series when the Royals played the San Francisco Giant --and that is not just due to the success story of the upstart Mets, he added.

While the New York market is sure to bring in more viewers than San Francisco did last year, and while the Cinderella story of the Mets's rise to pennant-winning prominence may have become one that has captured national interest, Mulcahy said a majority of advertisers were buying in regardless of the matchup. Whoever wins, it will be that team’s first title in more than a generation. The Mets last won in 1986; the Royals in 1985.

“Our World Series ad dollars have been coming in steadily, and I don’t feel the Mets or Royals have had that great an impact on bringing marketers in,” Mulcahy said. “The Mets will most likely help us achieve stronger ratings and enable us to charge more for scatter ads in the Series going forward, but advertiser interest in the Series was strong before the Mets advanced.”

Mulcahy said much of that is due to Major League Baseball and its official partners who are supporting the World Series telecast on Fox, either with traditional 30-second units throughout the Series or by sponsoring special features. 

“Major League Baseball has been fabulous in getting its official sponsors to participate in various aspects of our World Series coverage,” Mulcahy said.

Read more at broadcastingcable.com.

The Kansas City Royals put away the Baltimore Orioles in the American League Championship Series to reach their first World Series 1985, ending TBS’s exclusive coverage of the 2014 junior circuit postseason action in the process.

Despite the ALCS sweep by the smallest market pairings ever – KC is Nielsen market No. 31, while the Baltimore DMA ranks 26th -- and similar on-field outcomes during the two AL Division Series, TBS closed the Nielsen books on the 2014 postseason by averaging 4.3 million viewers, its most-viewed MLB playoffs since 2010.  According to Nielsen data, TBS’s delivery for its 10-game schedule, including the Wild Card game, was up 3% from the 4.16 million watchers it registered in 2013, when it had all four Division Series and the National League Championship Series under the contract that expired last season.

TBS won the night across cable television six times during the 2014 MLB postseason and delivered growth across all key demos.

However, the numbers figured to have been much higher, as 2014 marked the first time in postseason history all three American League series ended in sweeps. Additionally, approximately only half of TBS’s postseason games aired in primetime compared with two-thirds of the network’s 24 telecasts running in primetime during the 2013 MLB playoffs.

With 4 million tuning in the Royals’ clincher on Wednesday afternoon, the ALCS averaged 5.07 viewers for four game telecasts, up 2% over the network’s six-game NLCS series in 2013 in which the St. Louis Cardinals took out the Los Angeles Dodgers. Game 4 was up 8% from the 3.7 million for Game 5 of the 2013 NLCS in the corresponding Wednesday afternoon window .

TBS’s ALCS primetime pair of games this year averaged 5.96 million viewers and a 3.7 U.S. household rating, up 8% and 6% respectively over TBS’ primetime telecasts in 2013. The network’s two afternoon telecasts during the ALCS averaged 4.14 million total viewers and a 2.6 rating, up 15% and 8% over the network’s afternoon windows in 2013.  Last year’s NLCS had four primetime contests and two afternoon affairs.

All told, TBS’s ALCS coverage averaged a 3.2 rating and the network’s overall 2014 MLB postseason telecasts averaged a 2.7 U.S. mark, both even with last year.