Let's take it one by one:
KOMO is owned by Sinclair and the company has been in the midst of a bankruptcy debacle with the ill-fated Diamond Sports plan. I find it hard to believe Sinclair would invest in local baseball, even though the ARC Seattle channel (KUNS) is available. KOMO has the Storm and that may be all they want for now. I don't see it.
KIRO has been cut to the bones, so it's hard to picture owner Cox/Apollo being interested, especially when the station has no sports department. An investment in personnel and telecasts would be a big step and big reputational boost, but as a CBS affil with strong network programming and no duopoly, I don't see the station pre-empting primetine for night games, even in rerun season. Maybe a weekend package?
KSTW is a CBS-owned independent but even though there is a side deal to carry a handful of Portland Trailblazers games, would it be interested in a baseball package. I wouldn't rule it out, because in another playoff year, it would bring major attention and sampling to the station, which always seems to be running in place. They carry a handful of Portland Trailblazers games, but this would be a far bigger strp. The bigger question is, would CBS be ready to invest when the company is starting to make cuts at the network and maybe its O&Os? On the the other hand, could there somewhere be a localized Paramount Plus component to this??
Fox 13 has been gobbling up local live sports, the Torrent, the Reign, the Thunderbirds et al, and they were very aggressive on the Seahawks coverage at the Super Bowl. The station positions itself as FOX Local, has a duopoly (KJZO) and are big into streaming. If there was a front runner, KCPQ would seem to be the one. It fits their MO. And the Fox mother ship does have a nationl baseball contract.
Which brings us to KING. They have a Kraken deal and a Seahawks partnership and a duopoly (KONG) to telecast games, with selected ones going to KING, just like hockey. The possible sale to Nexstar looms large here, but if they did a deal in the next little while, while still under Tegna, it would be a big ratings get during spring and summer (with NBS having Sunday Night Baseball, too), when a sale deal would likely still be in progress. Plus, once the Olympics are over, KING could jump in front of the pack and make a surprise announcement.
Please offer your thoughts on this. We know there will be games streamed for $20/month on Mariners.com and we know MLB will produce linear games, but who is the distributor for them? A seperate Xfinity channel? So the broadcasters need to get involved for some kind of free TVpackage.
This is all above my pay grade. Just speculating.
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