Nearly a year after emerging from bankruptcy, regional sports network operator Main Street Sports is once again teetering on the brink of financial calamity. 

The company is in advanced talks on a deal to sell itself to DAZN, the London-based sports streamer. If an agreement for DAZN to take majority control does not happen by January, however, Main Street Sports is planning to shut itself down entirely, industry sources said. Such a move would revert the local rights of nine Major League Baseball teams, 13 in the NBA, and seven in the NHL back to those respective leagues and franchises. 

Resolution on the future path of Main Street Sports is expected by early January.

MLB’s Cardinals did not receive a scheduled December rights payment from Main Street Sports, and there is a chance that several other teams, particularly in the NBA, could suffer the same fate in the coming weeks. St. Louis, however, has not terminated its rights agreement. 

“Main Street Sports Group is in discussions with certain team partners around the timing of their rights payments as we progress discussions with strategic partners to further enhance our long-term capital position,” a company spokesman said in a statement to Front Office Sports.

The impending situation with Main Street Sports was first reported by Sports Business Journal. 

A combination between DAZN and Main Street Sports would give DAZN a much greater presence in the U.S., building on its larger foothold in several other parts of the world, notably Europe. The existing FanDuel Sports Network, carrying a naming rights agreement with the sports betting giant, would be folded into the existing DAZN platform. 

DAZN, however, has had its own financial issues, posting in October a pre-tax loss of $935.6 million for 2024, itself an improvement from a 2023 loss of more than $1.4 billion. 

Larger Considerations

The entire RSN business continues to be under significant stress as cord-cutting continues to accelerate. Although Main Street Sports posted a strong viewership increase during the 2025 MLB season, has begun to do so again in the current NBA and NHL seasons, and retooled its production under former ESPN executive Norby Williamson, the aim is to provide greater long-term stability. A potential combination with DAZN would do just that.

If a deal with DAZN isn’t completed and Main Street Sports shuts down, each of the three leagues would need to develop alternate plans to show the games of the affected teams. MLB particularly has experience in having to manage the local rights of some of its teams on minimal notice. Main Street Sports, formerly Diamond Sports Group, abruptly dropped the Padres in early 2023, the first team it did that with early in its bankruptcy reorganization. MLB’s local media department, developed to respond to RSN turbulence, remains in place and is prepared to take on more teams if necessary.

Most recently, the Mariners voluntarily opted into MLB’s in-house model for production and distribution of local games, winding down Root Sports Northwest.

The National Links Trust is making a last-ditch effort to try and prevent U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration from taking control of three historic public golf courses in Washington, D.C.

Since 2020, the NLT—a nonprofit organization created in 2019—has overseen operations of the East Potomac Golf Links, Langston Golf Course, Rock Creek Park Golf, as part of a 50-year lease agreement with the National Park Service, which owns the courses. But Trump has alleged that the NLT violated terms of its lease, and could terminate the lease by the end of this month. 

In recent days, the NLT has been publicly pleading its case on social media to retain jurisdiction over the three courses.

“The future of our stewardship over DC’s municipal golf courses is now facing a direct threat,” the NLT wrote in an Instagram post highlighting various media articles about the issue. “We need your help amplifying these stories and bringing attention to the situation.”

Another Instagram post called for followers to share why affordable and accessible golf is important to them. Many golfers with D.C. ties have worried that Trump taking over the courses could mean more expensive greens fees. Additionally, Trump is reportedly considering transforming the 36 holes at East Potomac into one 18-hole course and renaming it Washington National Golf Course.

The NLT’s X/Twitter account has been retweeting dozens of posts about the saga, too. A petition on Change.org titled “Keep DC’s Public Golf Courses Out of Political Control” has nearly 2,000 signatures, and says it is awaiting a response from the NPS.

In 2024, the NLT launched the Nation’s Capital Project, which seeks to revitalize and rehabilitate the three courses at the center of this latest dispute. Last month, Ed Russo, a longtime consultant for Trump and now chairman of the White House Environmental Advisory Task Force, told Front Office Sports that Tiger Woods had agreed to help with the redesign of Langston. 

Work at Rock Creek is underway and likely won’t be finished until 2027. That project’s estimated cost, paid for by funds raised by the NLT, is between $25 million and $35 million. Once the Rock Creek renovation finishes, Langston would be up next.

A candidate for the unofficial National Football League game of the season delivered another major audience for Amazon.

The streaming giant said Monday that it averaged 15.36 million viewers for its Thursday Night Football coverage of the Dec. 18 game between the Rams and Seahawks. The clash, won by Seattle 38–37 in overtime, more than lived up to the extensive pregame hype, and positioned the Seahawks as the current top seed in the NFC playoff race. The viewership beat the comparable game from the 2024 season by 39%. 

The audience figure, however, did not match the 19.4 million that Amazon averaged for a Dec. 4 TNF game between the Cowboys and Lions, setting a regular-season record for the four years that the Thursday NFL games have exclusively been on Prime Video. 

For the season, though, Amazon is averaging 14.96 million viewers for TNF, up 13% from last year, and up 26% from 2023. The hefty viewership for the Rams-Seahawks game also extended a banner season for the company that included a significant audience bump on Black Friday. That full-season average is also greater than any other provider or combination of providers in the two-decade history of TNF.

In addition to the on-field drama, the Rams-Seahawks game also included Los Angeles receiver Puka Nacua continuing his criticism of the referees. He received a $25,000 fine for those comments.