The Full Ownership Dream, Cut Short
On a November morning in 2025, ROOT Sports Northwest stopped broadcasting. The Seattle Mariners‘ own television network—the one they had just completed buying in December 2023—was gone. Personnel were laid off on November 3rd. After nearly four decades on the air, the channel that had carried Mariners baseball into living rooms across the Pacific Northwest was finished.
John W. Stanton, the Mariners’ owner, had made the move to acquire the remaining 29 percent stake from Warner Bros. Discovery less than two years earlier, giving the Mariners of Seattle complete ownership of their broadcast operation. It seemed like control. It turned out to be timing.
The speed of the collapse says something brutal about local sports television in 2025: even owning 100 percent of your network doesn’t guarantee you can keep it running. The math changed faster than anyone anticipated.
Why Ownership Wasn’t Enough
Buying a television network and running one are different problems. The Mariners of Seattle discovered that the hard way. ROOT Sports Northwest had been a fixture in the region since the late 1980s, built to carry Mariners games and other regional sports. For decades, that worked. Local TV rights were valuable. Fans expected to find their team on cable.
By 2023, the landscape had shifted. Streaming had fractured the audience. National packages—especially the ones MLB itself controlled—were pulling dollars and eyeballs away from regional broadcasts. The economics of maintaining a standalone regional sports network, even one owned by the team itself, had become unsustainable.
Full ownership meant the Mariners of Seattle controlled every decision. It also meant they absorbed every loss. There was no corporate parent to absorb costs or negotiate carriage deals. When the numbers didn’t work, there was no one else to blame and nowhere to pass the bill.
What Comes Next, Without ROOT
The Mariners of Seattle didn’t abandon broadcasting. Starting in 2026, MLB itself produces the team’s local telecasts. The product is called Mariners.TV—direct to fans, no blackouts, no cable package required. It’s a different model entirely: not a regional sports network, but a team-controlled streaming platform.
It’s also a statement about where baseball television lives now. The regional sports network, as a business model, may be dying. The Mariners of Seattle tried to own theirs outright, thinking control would solve the problem. Instead, they learned that you can own 100 percent of something and still need to shut it down.
The lesson ripples through baseball. Other owners watch what happened in Seattle. Some teams still operate regional sports networks—some own them, some lease them. But the Mariners’ experience is a warning: ownership alone doesn’t insulate you from the economics of cable television in decline.
For fans in Seattle, the change is practical. No more hunting for ROOT Sports Northwest on the cable dial. No more blackout restrictions on Mariners.TV. The broadcast is there, produced by the league, controlled by the team, available without a cable subscription.
But the speed of it—full ownership in December 2023, shutdown in November 2025—is the real story. In modern baseball, even the owner’s network can’t survive the pace of change in television. The Mariners of Seattle learned that lesson expensively, and everyone else is watching.
The number: The Mariners of Seattle bought full control of ROOT Sports Northwest in December 2023 and shut it down after the 2025 season, laying off staff on November 3rd.
Ownership data verified as of 2026-08-12.
