A one-year cable and streaming rights deal that will cover the team’s broadcasts for the 2025 season was unexpectedly agreed by the Reds yesterday with Main Street Sports/FanDuel Sports Network (the renamed companies that were previously known as Diamond Sports Group and Bally Sports). The Reds, along with a number of other teams, had given up their television rights to the league in a less profitable agreement because Diamond Sports Group was in bankruptcy. Although the exact amount of additional cash Cincinnati would receive as a result of this new deal is still unknown, president of baseball operations Nick Krall informed the Reds beat yesterday that the team’s payroll, which had been almost maxed out, will benefit.
“It’s great to just get a little bit more money,” Krall said (source: Cincinnati Enquirer’s Gordon Wittenmyer). “We can put in a little more effort in the trade market and free agency.”
The news of more resources available to the front office will undoubtedly be welcomed by Reds supporters. Although Krall didn’t give any firm predictions about what lies ahead, his tone has changed from last week, when he said that the Reds “did not [have] a ton” of salary flexibility following the Gavin Lux deal.
The Reds are now projected by RosterResource to have a payroll of $106 million, which is around $6 million more than where they ended the 2024 season. That is typically regarded as the upper end of ownership’s range. Krall suggested after the Lux acquisition that the team’s competitive balance draft pick was included in the trade as a clever way to fit Lux’s meager $3.325MM salary onto the books while also lowering the Reds’ draft budget. That isn’t indicative of a squad that has further acquisitions planned.
The magnitude of the impact on Cincinnati’s spending capacity will only become clear with time. In a rather ambiguous statement, COO Doug Healy stated that the agreement “enhances our economics slightly.” Krall’s later remarks make it more apparent that the Reds would be able to make another move with the unanticipated increase in revenue.
Even if both players are apparently warming to the prospect of shorter-term contracts in free agency, it would be shocking if the Reds suddenly felt confident enough to invest money on Pete Alonso or Anthony Santander. They were said to have shown interest in Gleyber Torres prior to his signing with the Tigers, and they have lately been connected to reliever Carlos Estevez. Despite earlier interest in Estevez, Wittenmyer notes that the two sides had not spoken for “weeks” before the
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