The bankruptcy of the FanDuel branded networks has thrown the regional sports networks of MLB into uncertainty. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)Getty ImagesAs Major League Baseball starts the 2026 season, fans have to face as many as five different subscriptions and 10 networks to watch all their favorite team’s games this season, a dizzying – and expensive – proposition for consumers. To add, as of Wednesday night, when MLB opened the season with a single game between the Giants and Yankees, for the first time on Netflix, nine clubs had yet to announce all the channels fans would find on Thursday. For fans of the Nationals, Mariners, Brewers, Cardinals, Marlins, Rays, Reds, Royals, Tigers, and Braves, they are dealing with the fallout of Main Street Sports – the former FanDuel-labeled networks – going bankrupt. Like the Padres, Diamondbacks, Guardians, Twins, and Rockies in the last couple of years, eight of them have gone under Major League Baseball’s umbrella. The Braves have launched their own regional sports network. Just before the game on Netflix, DirecTV announced that they would carry all eight of the clubs under the MLB umbrella.The bankruptcy of the FanDuel branded networks has thrown the regional sports networks of MLB into uncertainty. (Photo by Luke Hales/Getty Images)Getty ImagesBased on all of this, one might expect that advertisers would be running to the hills. It’s quite the opposite.For Playfly Sports, which handles advertising bundles for the MLB regional sports networks, as well as for clubs that have gone over to MLB, where MLB Network has handled production, the schism with Main Street Sports hasn’t really affected how the advertising business flows.MORE FOR YOU“At Playfly, we are an agnostic group that is deeply tied to the health of the distribution and the availability and the engagement of fans in local media coverage of baseball teams, so that's what we do,” said Craig Sloan, CEO of Playfly Sports. “We just are rooting for teams to have the best possible media rights relationships they could have. And so we've been watching this all develop on one side -- Main Street has been a great partner to us. And yet, at the same time as that change happened, we had already had our relationship in place with Major League Baseball, and we were already representing the Diamondbacks, the Rockies, the Padres, the Guardians, and the Twins, who had already moved into MLB media. And so in some ways, it was sort of a non-event for Playfly.”When Opening Day hits, half the league’s RSNs will now be under MLB’s control. That will mean a change in programming from being on the prior nets.According to Sloan, as far as what the fans can expect in those markets, you're going to lose the 24/7 coverage that an RSN had where not all of those hours are dedicated just to your baseball team. “The majority of where the audience engagement happens is during the pre, in, and post-game environments,” said Sloan. “They'll still get that. So I think the disruption is going to actually be very little for the actual fan.”While the clubs will be announcing on Opening Day, carriage is expected to be the same, if not better than was the case before with the nine teams making the jump.Streaming Numbers See Historic Growth For one, all the clubs now have standalone streaming options for cord-cutters or never-corders. This area of fans moving to streaming is happening at a clip faster than many in the industry has expected.Between authenticated streaming – cases where a subscriber has a TV service that offers streaming – or direct-to-consumers, the growth has been staggering.“Our streaming numbers are blended between authenticated and direct to consumer, because it doesn’t disseminate how you're coming in,” said Sloan. “We're up on unique streamers 50% in 2025 across the board in unique streamers per game. So that's a massive take. We would have been very happy with a double-digit number, but being up 50% was extraordinary.”Sloan added that the average minutes that people are spending is nearly 90 minutes a game, that’s up +68%“These people are not coming in for a quick check-in of the score and moving on, that's extraordinary, and it's about double what the national single feed networks enjoy for time spent,” Sloan said. “So it does show how much more engaged people are in these local markets, following their local home team. It's very purposeful engagement.”Ad Revenue Is Up Due To Large Inventory Of GamesAd revenues have been up for the MLB RSNs, with Sloan saying that over the past few years, growth has been “high single digit, or low double digit.” Advertiser categories shift and move as Madison Ave ad budgets ebb and flow. Some categories have stood out more than others in terms of where that growth is coming from. Sloan said that for MLB, the auto category has been hot. Earlier this week, Ford was announced as a major partner at the league level, showing that to be the case. “As far as the growth categories go, financial services is a significant category for us,” said Sloan, adding that restaurants, which include quick-service, pharmaceutical, and retail, are key growth categories.As to why MLB is such a hot property for advertisers, it’s due to the large inventory of games, and owning the local viewership during the summer months, given little competition. “If you think about how many units there are in a local market, each team controls about 12,000 baseball units across the season, which includes pre-and post-game, that's an unbelievable amount of inventory,” Sloan said. “In the long term, baseball is enjoying three straight years of not only media growth across linear and streaming, but also growth in audience and attendance,” said Sloan. “They're on a great run. Again, you look at factors like the World Baseball Classic, which recently happened, and the drama around that event. It's a great setup for what's going to be a tremendous baseball season.”15 individual teams saw viewership up in 2025:AngelsCardinalsRoyalsTigersBrewersRedsMarlinsD-backsRockiesGuardiansGiantsCubsRed SoxDodgersMetsRangers