MLB Games Loss Due to Labor Standoff Sends Regional Networks Scrambling

variety.com:

Jennifer Maas TV Business WriterThe bargaining standoff between Major League Baseball and its players that led to last week’s cancellation of Opening Day is a particularly bitter pill to swallow for the local and national outlets that bring games to their most ardent fans — networks that already have experienced two seasons of COVID-driven disruptions.On March 1, MLB took the dramatic step of tabling Opening Day games and activities set for March 31.

It also canceled other early games for the 2022 season. The cancellations affect programming and advertising plans for baseball TV partners including ESPN, Turner Sports, Fox Sports, Sinclair Broadcast Group and NBC Sports Regional Networks and team channels like the Yankees’ YES Network and the Dodgers’ Spectrum SportsNet LA. “Like all baseball fans, we hope there is a resolution as soon as possible,” Burke Magnus, ESPN’s president of programming and original content, tells Variety.Negotiations have dragged on for months.

After MLB’s previous collective bargaining agreement expired on Dec. 1, the league immediately locked players out of team facilities.

There was no deal in sight by the MLB’s Feb. 28 deadline to start the season on time.Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred said games from March 31 through the first full week of April would be lost for the 30 MLB franchises, reducing each team’s schedule from 162 games to approximately 156 at most.