Major League Baseball agreed to a whopping $3.75 billion extension with Turner Sports on Wednesday that will allow the television network to continue broadcasting games through the 2028 season. The new agreement will take effect in 2022 and include a Tuesday night game, as well as additional postseason games.
During Friday's installment of "Nothing Personal with David Samson," David Samson weighed in on the new television deal and explained why it doesn't exactly mean that payrolls will be increasing for MLB clubs.
"All the national TV deal money is not distributed to the clubs. Hundreds of millions of dollars are withheld and kept for a rainy day or a work stoppage," Samson said. "That money is used to pay expenses in the central office: salaries of all employees, rent in the office meetings, all the events that happen."
Samson points out that even with a new television deal, MLB clubs don't always see the money from such deals. For example, the MLB needed extra funds this season when the league was forced to shut down as a result of COVID-19. He hinted that in order to stay afloat, the league used money like the kind they will be getting from this new deal.
While Samson does believe that there's still a tremendous amount of interest in baseball from a fan perspective, this new deal won't impact payrolls, so fans shouldn't get their hopes up for their teams to spend more on accord of all this.
