What MLB, FanDuel television drama could mean for the Miami Marlins moving forward

Don't look now, but there could be some serious trouble on the horizon for the Miami Marlins.

Per the latest in a series of articles from The Athletic in the last few days, Main Street Sports Group is headed for bankruptcy.

What exactly is a Main Street Sports Group? Square on a Monopoly board? Little league sports committee? Totally solid guesses, but it's actually the corporate face behind the FanDuel Sport Network, the television home of nine MLB clubs- including the Marlins. Or rather, it was the home of them. According to The Athletic's reports, FanDuel missed numerous payments to those clubs, with Miami being one of them.

Consequently, all nine of those MLB teams cancelled their contracts faster than Ole Miss fans just cancelled their Miami hotel reservations after that Fiesta Bowl loss to the Hurricanes.

Sorry, couldn't help it. Back to baseball though, television money is obviously a huge chunk of revenue every MLB team, but it's particularly important to the smaller payroll clubs like the Marlins. And now suddenly, a huge chunk of incoming money is now very much in flux. Gone outright? That seems unlikely. Smaller to much smaller than what Miami was expecting heading into the 2026 season? Almost certainly.

The Miami Herald's Barry Jackson laid out their choices, which essentially come down to switching to another network in the area (Scripps) or becoming part of the growing number of teams MLB manages through their streaming package. As to which they pick, or how the final tv product looks going forward, that remains to be seen. Again, all we can say confidently today is it's less guaranteed money in Marlins owner Bruce Sherman's pocket.

So what does that mean for the 2026 Miami Marlins?

It's possible Marlins fans have already seen the impact. For while the story broke this week, it's hard to believe teams didn't know this was coming. Would the Marlins have spent more, perhaps especially at first base, if this bad news wasn't forthcoming? Or if this was a surprise, will this keep Miami from being as aggressive a shopper of the free agent leftovers as the calendar turns toward February? No final relief pitcher or actual first baseman to put a bow on the offseason? That could be how it plays out.

On the other hand, ratings and subscriptions could suddenly matter a lot more to the Marlins than they did when they were looking at a regular payment schedule from Main Street. The better the Marlins are on the field, the more money they would stand to make if they go with the MLB option. So there's now arguably more financial incentive to put the best team possible on the field.

Which would only further reinforce an argument that many in the baseball community were already suggesting was taking place for the Marlins and similar clubs in the face of the upcoming CBA talks following the end of the 2026 season. The big market teams that do regularly spend big money were already grumpy about revenue sharing, and the case has been made that the teams that have benefited the most from revenue sharing like Miami and Pittsburgh were already trying to put on their best face this season to secure the status quo or better continues. With the RSN revenue system now in its final death throws, small market teams could be best served by putting on an even bigger show of good faith in 2026 before those CBA talks commence.

Ultimately, Marlins fans might not know until well after the fact what impact this had on 2026 team building. Yet what every Marlins should know is that those CBA talks just got all the more interesting for the future of the franchise.