Every match on the same channel? How can MLB influence the Dodgers moving forward?

If you want to watch every Dodgers game in 2026, you’ll likely need access to all of these outlets: Sportsnet Los AngelesFox, ESPN, NBC, peacock and Apple TV.

This is not, shall we say, fan-friendly.

The holy grail of baseball is: one place to watch your team, and every team, wherever you are. One price. No power outages. No need to decide to pay to subscribe to a port you may never watch after the game is over.

Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t need to convince fans on that one. He needs to convince the 30 team owners of this.

Since Manfred wants to operate this “All the Teams, All The Time” outlet in 2029, he needs to start arranging votes among the owners. Manfred has talked about this goal for years, and I asked him if he could say it would actually happen.

“I think there’s a lot of acceptance within the industry that, given what’s happened within the media environment, we need to be more patriotic,” Manfred told me before the Dodgers and Philadelphia Phillies met Monday at Citizens Bank Park.

“The idea of ​​centralization, of making more games available on national platforms, is really attractive to people. Now, we still have some cards to play. But I’m still optimistic that it can happen.”

So does Dodgers president Stan Kasten.

“We support the idea of ​​all fans anywhere being able to watch any match, eliminating power outages,” Kasten said. “It takes a lot of steps, and every team has a different situation.

“We have a long way to go, but the goal is fantastic, and I think all the fans will benefit from it, and that is the most important thing.”

This all looks nice so far. But the Dodgers aren’t about to unconditionally give up what fans outside of Los Angeles consider their greatest competitive advantage: money, and lots of it.

The Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers are on track to meet in the National League Championship Series. The Brewers generate about $35 million in local TV revenue this year, according to the Sports Business Journal.

The Dodgers are making about 10 times that amount in rights fees this year from Charter Communications, Spectrum’s parent company — and annual rights fees will exceed $500 million by the end of the charter contract in 2038. And there’s more: The Dodgers also own SportsNet LA.

If the 30 teams pool their streaming rights, Manfred believes they can attract interest not only from traditional outlets but also from streaming companies like Apple, Peacock, Paramount and Netflix. League officials believed that the exclusivity of one package would generate more collective revenue than a group of 30 individual package deals.

In theory, the Brewers would receive more than $35 million annually if the teams split the pot evenly. The Dodgers will get less, perhaps a lot less. Will Manfred rely on the Dodgers to get the game going?

“I don’t think you can make a change like that based on people saying it’s for the good of the game,” Manfred said. “I think you make a change like that by people realizing who the buyers are, what they want to buy, and by putting together a set of changes that make it more of an economic wash.”

That means teams like the Dodgers — and the New York, Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs — are still reeling in big bucks amid the collapse of regional sports networks outside the big markets?

“Yes, and there are many ways to get there,” Manfred said.

He did not offer a list of his options, but the first option is clear. Collective bargaining negotiations are scheduled to begin next year, with the possibility of a lockout growing after the 2026 season.

If owners could impose a salary cap — which the players’ union insists will remain — small-market owners could be guaranteed a guaranteed but limited percentage of league revenue. The certainty of cost, along with the potential for increased revenue from a 30-team broadcast package, will likely attract small market owners.

This could be crucial, because these owners currently make a fair amount of money from revenue sharing, under which teams are valued at a percentage of that money such as ticket sales, concession sales and local media revenue. That money is pooled and split equally for now, but Manfred could offer the Dodgers and other financial giants a chance to keep more of that money — or all of it — for themselves.

The league could also offer to buy SportsNet LA and other similar channels, which would mean more money for the Dodgers. Although the Dodgers under current ownership do not appear interested in setting a salary cap, a cap would reduce player spending and thus increase team profits.

Wild Card: With Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Rocky Sasaki, and Heesung Kim on their roster, the Dodgers can demand greater revenue from international broadcast rights, which are now shared evenly between the teams.

That’s a lot of balls for Manfred to juggle. Kasten adamantly declined to say what might work for the Dodgers.

“You are delving into areas that it is too early for me to discuss, other than to tell you we are on target,” he said. “The goal is good, and hopefully baseball can get there.”