Ilich Sports and Entertainment, the owner of the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball (MLB) team and the Detroit Red Wings National Hockey League (NHL) franchise, has announced that both organizations will have their local broadcast production and distribution handled by MLB in their upcoming campaigns.
MLB will handle broadcast production for all non-nationally televised Tigers games over the course of the agreement, and will also lead on distributing those games through a direct-to-consumer OTT streaming service, as well as broadcast distribution agreements.
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In terms of the Red Wings, Ilich Sports and Entertainment will cover broadcast production on non-nationally televised Red Wings games with MLB assistance, with the league handling broadcast distribution through the same means as the Tigers element.
These agreements will come into place from the 2026 MLB campaign and 2026-27 NHL campaign, respectively.
This new partnership confirms the end of the pair’s existing deals with FanDuel Sports Network, the regional sports network (RSN) brand from the beleaguered Main Street Sports Group (MMSG), which looks set to shutter entirely after the NBA and NHL seasons.
The RSN market has flagged for years as cord-cutting has affected TV companies such as MSSG (previously Diamond Sports Group) heavily.
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By GlobalDataWith MLB recently taking over broadcast production for six other former MSSG teams, the departure of both the Tigers and the Red Wings represents a death knell for the format and for MSSG, which will likely fold once its remaining commitments finish up in the first half of 2026.
Speaking on the switch, Ilitch Sports and Entertainment president Ryan Gustafson said: “Given recent uncertainty throughout the regional sports broadcasting industry, we recognize the importance of providing fans with a consistent, year-round outlet to watch Tigers baseball and Red Wings hockey.
“We have two of the top-rated broadcasts in our respective sports and remain focused on listening to fans about what matters most to them. What we’ve heard includes making sure our games are available throughout the market, providing a reliable streaming product, and producing a broadcast that’s informative and entertaining in all the right ways. This is a great path forward in those areas, allowing us to provide a great experience for fans throughout our local market.”
MLB now manages the broadcast production and distribution for 15 of its 30 franchises (a number likely to increase to 17 in the coming weeks), but this is the first time that it is undertaking the same remit for a franchise of another sports league in the Red Wings.
While the burden may be growing on MLB, it has been reported that the league wants to manage production of local games for all 30 franchises by 2028, a move that will allow the competition to sell local rights as a national package, effectively ending regional blackouts while also securing each teams’ media rights income to the more secure cable, satellite, or streaming industries at a time when RSNs are struggling significantly to make rights payments.
Ilitch Sports and Entertainment claims that Tigers viewership on FanDuel Sports Network in the 2025 MLB season was among the highest in the league, stating that only five US-based franchises (discounting the Toronto Blue Jays) had a higher per-game viewership through the season than the Tigers, and only two had a higher rating (a percentage of available TVs in the region).
After failing to make the post-season playoffs since 2014, the Tigers have had back-to-back years of playoff baseball since 2024, owing to a much-improved on-field offering headed by the heroics of all-star pitcher Tarik Skubal, who will return to the team in 2026 after agreeing a $32 million salary for the season after arbitration.
