MLB

MLB pitchers charged with conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery go on trial in New York.

Former Cleveland Guardians pitchers Emmanuel Clase and Luis Ortiz go on trial on Monday on charges of accepting bribes after colluding with gamblers who made hundreds of thousands of dollars by betting correctly on individual pitches in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the United States.

Their careers and possibly their freedom are at stake in the jury trial expected to unfold over the next month in New York’s Brooklyn federal court. Several professional baseball players, including catchers and baseball executives, are among witnesses expected to testify.

Clase, the Guardians’ former closer, and Ortiz, a starter, have pleaded not guilty to conspiracy charges and are on non-disciplinary leave from the club without pay while their fate is determined.

According to an indictment, the pitchers accepted thousands of dollars in payoffs to help two gamblers from their native Dominican Republic win at least $460,000 on in-game prop bets on the speed and outcome of certain pitches.

Prosecutors allege that Clase began providing the betters with information about his pitches in 2023 and recruited Ortiz into the scheme in 2025. Ortiz’s lawyers unsuccessfully sought to have him tried separately from Clase.

Judge Kiyo A Matsumoto said at a conference last Friday that she hopes to complete jury selection quickly enough that lawyers can deliver relatively short opening statements in the afternoon.

Clase, 28, is a three-time All-Star and two-time American League Reliever of the Year who had completed his fourth season of a $20m, five-year contract when charges against the pitchers were revealed in November 2025.

Ortiz, 27, had earned $782,600 as a starting pitcher for the Guardians during the 2025 season.

The pitchers have been charged with wire fraud conspiracy, honest services wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy and conspiracy to influence sporting contests by bribery.

Defence lawyers are expected to argue that the pitchers did not collude with gamblers and instead were varying the placement of pitches strategically to fool batters.

On Friday, the judge ruled that prosecutors cannot show the jury proof that Clase owed $500,000 in US taxes because they had only provided the evidence to defence lawyers several days earlier and long after a deadline had passed to turn over evidence to their adversaries.

A prosecutor had argued that the government wanted to put the evidence in the trial to offset any claim by Clase’s lawyers that he had no incentive to collude with gamblers because he had several million dollars in financial accounts in the Dominican Republic.

MLB and the Guardians have said they have fully cooperated with authorities. MLB said it contacted federal law enforcement when it began investigating unusual betting activity.

The small-market World Series in Major League Baseball wrapped up this week, with the Milwaukee Brewers winning their first title in franchise history.

The title triumph came 44 years after Milwaukee’s only other trip to the Fall Classic, when they lost to the St Louis Cardinals in seven games in 1982.

But beyond the memorable victory, the series’ television ratings made for underwhelming reading, raising questions about baseball’s reach and relevance in a United States sports market dominated by American football and basketball.

Al Jazeera breaks down the numbers and more:

Who played in the 2026 MLB World Series?

The World Series, the championship series of the 2026 MLB season, saw the American League champion Tampa Bay Rays and the National League champion Milwaukee Brewers compete in a best-of-seven playoff series.

At the end of the October 23-28 playoff series, Milwaukee were crowned winners, as they clinched their first World Series title.

Milwaukee’s 57-year wait for a championship ended on Wednesday after defeating the Tampa Bay Rays 4-1 to wrap up the Fall Classic in five games.

Why didn’t the 2026 World Series capture TV audiences?

While the final Nielsen ratings report is still pending, estimates show an average of 11.82 million viewers tuned in for the 2026 World Series across the Fox network.

Milwaukee’s 10-1 win at Tampa in Game 3 attracted the lowest audience, 8.33 million, while Game 5, in which Milwaukee sealed the championship, drew the highest with 14.22 million viewers.

The overall average is much lower than the 2025 and 2024 World Series, which drew 15.49 million and 15.1 million viewers, respectively, as the Los Angeles Dodgers won the title both times.

This year’s World Series’ underwhelming viewership could be linked to the two teams’ relatively low payrolls and markets – the Brewers’ payroll ranks 19th in MLB ($146m), and the Rays are 28th ($95m).

The Brewers also rank as the smallest market team in MLB, generating the lowest local commercial and TV revenue, while the Rays rank squarely in the league’s middle.

Hence, when the Brewers and Rays met this year on MLB’s biggest stage, it marked the first World Series clash between two of baseball’s smallest spenders in 35 ⁠years.

On the other hand, nine-time World Series winners Dodgers, who competed in the last two World Series, boast a star-studded lineup on a hefty payroll, featuring marquee star Shohei Ohtani, former MVP Mookie Betts, 10-time All-Star Freddie Freeman and others.

Those factors keep them in the tier 1 market size category – one that represents the biggest media and population footprints in the sport.

How does the World Series compare with other US sports?

The 2026 World Series’ viewership figures also pale in comparison to those of other major US sports leagues.

Basketball’s 2026 NBA Finals, in which the New York Knicks defeated the San Antonio Spurs 4-1 to end a 53-year drought, attracted a series average of 20.58 million viewers. Game 5 was the most-watched NBA Finals game 5 since 1998, averaging 24.54 million viewers and peaking at 33 million.

Elsewhere in international football, the 2026 FIFA World Cup, held in North America, also produced record numbers. Spain’s 1-0 extra-time win over Argentina delivered a combined average audience of 62.8 million across Fox and Telemundo, making it the most-watched football match ever in the United States.

American football, by far, is the most-watched sport in the US.

A Nielsen report found that an estimated 125.6 million viewers watched the National Football League’s Super Bowl LX, as the Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 29-13.

NBC’s presentation of Super Bowl LX ranked as the second most-watched Super Bowl in history, behind the 127.7 million viewers who watched Super Bowl LIX in 2025.

The only major American sports league that performs weakly against MLB is the National Hockey League (NHL), a professional ice hockey league in North America.

An average of 5.2 million viewers tuned in for the 2026 Stanley Cup, won by the Carolina Hurricanes, who defeated the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2.

Why was the 2026 MLB London series cancelled?

MLB initially scheduled to host two games in London in mid-2026, with the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays pencilled in to play on June 13 and 14 at London Stadium, the home ground of English football team West Ham United.

But the plan was cancelled due to scheduling issues with the venue and baseball’s television partner.

West Ham played their 2025-26 Premier League season’s final match against Leeds United at the ground on May 24, leaving very little time to convert the field to baseball, which can take up to three weeks.

Furthermore, MLB was unable to schedule games at the same venue later in June because Fox lacked available broadcast slots as that period clashed with the FIFA World Cup.

MLB games have been played abroad on several occasions, from Japan to Australia, since it was first played in Mexico in 2000.

MLB is also working on grassroots initiatives in India, known for its affinity for cricket, and last week hosted MLBx, a fast-paced 3-on-3 baseball competition that brought together baseball and softball stars.

Are other US sports leagues also held abroad?

Yes, major US sports leagues have made strides in expanding their international footprints, regularly hosting regular-season games, exhibition matches and special events abroad.

The NFL hosts regular-season games abroad in locations including London, Munich, Madrid, Sao Paulo and Mexico City.

Last month, the league expanded its presence with games in Melbourne, and the NFL’s first game Down Under drew 100,021 fans, making it the seventh most-attended regular-season game in NFL history.

With a large portion of the league’s player base and revenue coming from outside the US, the NBA also plays regular-season and preseason games in international cities like Paris, Abu Dhabi and Mexico City.

This year, the Dodgers watched the World Series from home, with the Milwaukee Brewers’ World Series victory over the Tampa Bay Rays officially ushering in a fresh slate for the Dodgers to plan their 2027 championship pursuit.

“When you take the experience and the talent of our core guys, and you look at what is coming [up through the farm system], that is what gives us a high degree of confidence about being able to sustain this,” said Andrew Friedman, the Dodgers’ president of baseball operations, in his end-of-season news conference, “not just in 2027, but as we look out.”

As the Dodgers attempt to strengthen their roster to climb back to the top, however, they’ll have to navigate a disjointed winter transaction window.

MLB owners are expected to impose a lockout when the collective bargaining agreement expires on Dec. 1. If that happens, the offseason will grind to a halt, suspended indefinitely until the two sides sign a new agreement.

Will that expected shutdown spur early action in free agency?

Will the threat of a salary cap freeze the player market?

It’s unclear, but teams are readying themselves to jump into action whenever the market does move.

“There’ve been a number of things that we’ve done over the last couple of years that, in October, early-November planning we didn’t think was likely or that possible,” Friedman said. “An opportunity popped up, and we were at least prepared enough to act in the time to get something done — there’ve been trades, there’s been free-agent signings.

“So for us, it’s just about our internal meetings, getting as prepared as we can be. Because things are going to play out in ways and timing and things that we can’t anticipate, so be as prepared as we can be.”

Amid those unique circumstances, here’s a guide to the Dodgers’ offseason:

MILWAUKEE — It was an evening for pomp and pageantry, for celebrating a World Series between two of the five major league teams never to win one. But, before the first pitch of the first game, the commissioner of baseball and the head of the players’ union held separate media gatherings that only served to reinforce the notion that a lockout in December is a virtual certainty and Opening Day next March is in serious jeopardy.

Of all the major North American sports, baseball is the only one without a salary cap. The players and their union vow to keep it that way, and union chief Bruce Meyer said every proposal the owners make on every issue is contingent upon a salary cap. How, someone asked commissioner Rob Manfred, can the owners strike a deal if the union is entrenched against a cap?

“Re-thinking where you are is a really important part of trying to make a deal,” Manfred said. “It’s actually a skill in collective bargaining. It’s easy to say, ‘I’m here and I’m never moving.’ That’s not a particularly skilled approach to the process.”

That is perilously close to telling the other guy at the negotiating table how to negotiate. It’s also something you might say when you’re feeling pretty darn good that you’re going to win the negotiation.

“We have an unprecedented level of unanimity among ownership that it is something that we need to do,” Manfred said.

He wouldn’t say otherwise at this point, of course. The owners were unified in 1994, when they last demanded a salary cap. They didn’t win, and fans lost the final two months of the 1994 season and the first month of the 1995 season.

When the NHL got its salary cap, owners shut down the league for a full year. Would MLB owners forgo a year — or at least several months — of ticket sales and media revenue to get their cap? Would MLB players forgo a year — or at least several months — of their salaries to stave off a cap?

We won’t know the answer to either question until the spring, and until then a new collective bargaining agreement would require one side or the other to abandon its position.

MLB commissioner Rob Manfred speaks with the media before Game 1 of the World Series in Milwaukee on Friday.

(John Fisher / Getty Images)

That makes this year’s World Series something of a Rorschach test: Is a Brewers-Rays series proof that the system actually works just fine the way it is?

To Manfred, the answer is no. A series featuring two of baseball’s smaller markets is an anomaly when history shows a correlation between payroll and success, not only in the regular season but in advancing through the playoffs.

“It’s not that no small market can win,” Manfred said. “It’s just that it’s pretty rare.”

To Meyer, the answer is yes.

“It has nothing to do with what the Dodgers are doing,” Meyer said. “There is no reason whatsoever that the Pirates can’t do what the Brewers have done, or what the Rays have done.”

The Pirates, Meyer said, do not spend all the money they are allotted to sign draft picks. The Brewers, playing in baseball’s smallest market, might not routinely hand out free-agent riches, but owner Mark Attanasio said his team ranks “right in the middle” of the 30 teams in spending on baseball operations.

Attanasio publicly stumped for a salary cap here Friday, saying it would “help us compete but more importantly all of the other teams with lower payrolls too.” He said Brewers fans already fear it might take another 44 years to return to the World Series.

Said Meyer: “That doesn’t seem like a great way, with all due respect, to try and generate excitement among your fans.”

Meyer said this year’s series “undermines their argument” for what he called “the nuclear bomb of a salary cap.” He said the owners are uninterested in the union’s proposals for addressing competitive balance, including increased revenue sharing among owners and a tax against teams that fail to win consistently, and he alleged the league’s argument is “a charade” for what the owners really want: “to suppress salaries and gut player rights.”

The takeaway: Don’t book non-refundable airline tickets and hotel rooms for spring training.

On other topics:

— As The Times has reported, MLB is keeping an eye on federal investigations into Dodgers owner Mark Walter and his insurance empire, which is under scrutiny for allegedly violating laws designed to protect investors. Walter also is a defendant in multiple civil lawsuits filed by investors alleging fraud and breach of contract.

“As always when we have an investigation — external, law enforcement, whatever — we monitor that,” Manfred said. “That’s where we are right now. We’re just watching what’s going on right now.”

Over the past two months, amid efforts to find what could be more than $20 billion to recapitalize insurance funds, Walter has sold his controlling interest in the Lakers and a minority share of Chelsea, the English Premier League club. On Friday, Bloomberg reported he is seeking to sell the Sparks. He has no plan to sell the Dodgers, team president Stan Kasten has said.

— Meyer said the MLBPA continues negotiations with LA28 over how major league players would be accommodated in the 2028 Olympics. “As of now, we’re not getting satisfaction on those things,” Meyer said.

Both the league and the union say they want to participate in the Games, but Manfred said MLB would normally start preparing its 2028 schedule early in 2027. The league has agreed to an extended All-Star break to accommodate the Olympics, but MLB also could tire of waiting for the union to agree with LA28, which badly wants MLB players to participate.

The World Series is upon us, and this one should be a delight: The team with the best record in the National League, the Milwaukee Brewers, against the team with the best record in the American League, the Tampa Bay Rays.

The players are about to take baseball’s grandest stage. Yet this has somehow become a strange national obsession: not how Jacob Misiorowski or Junior Caminero might shine in the series, but how many people might watch it.

Should you care? Not really. Have you ever thought about watching a World Series game and thought, “Hmmm, let me consider what the ratings might be before I decide to tune in?”

Major League Baseball cares, of course, because its owners count on billions of dollars from the sale of television rights, and those rights are worth more money when more people watch the games. And, since the fog of a collective bargaining war has enveloped the sport, the ratings make for an intriguing subplot in the World Series.

This World Series is what owners say they want: less of, say, the Dodgers and the New York Yankees, more of teams from smaller markets that seldom advance through the playoffs, if they even get there. Neither the Brewers nor the Rays have won a World Series.

Yet the ratings for the Dodgers-Yankees World Series in 2024 almost doubled those for the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers in 2023, and this year’s ratings should be much closer to 2023 than 2024.

So, in a sport that already generates the majority of its broadcast revenue in national rather than local packages, amid the collapse of regional sports networks, are the owners taking a risk of making less money on the World Series?

Fox currently airs the World Series as the jewel of a seven-year, $5.1-billion deal that expires in 2028.

Ed Desser, a Santa Monica-based consultant who launched NBA TV and helped negotiate the Dodgers’ record SportsNet LA deal, said the value of a World Series featuring teams such as the Dodgers and Yankees goes beyond the large audiences they command because they play in large markets.

“It’s commonplace for people to hate the Dodgers, hate the Yankees — and, to some extent, that’s good for business, because it’s another rooting interest. Anything that gets people to focus their attention is good,” Desser said. “It’s easy to hate a team that’s in a glamorous place and spends more than almost anybody.

“I’m not sure that anybody has an ax to grind against the Rays or the Brewers. Sports is about passion.”

That said, neither Desser nor Bob Thompson, the former president of Fox Sports Networks, believes MLB is setting itself up for a big fall in revenue from the Fall Classic.

For Fox — and whatever other bidders might emerge come 2028 — ratings would be important, but not as much as you might think.

“Does expected audience matter? Of course,” Desser said. “They’re in the media business, and the way you monetize is by selling subscriptions to your channel and selling advertising.

“But, typically, you’re taking a much longer viewpoint. You’re making a deal that might be five, eight, 12 years. When you do that, you have an expectation that some teams get better, some teams get worse, sometimes you get a large market, sometimes you get a small market. It kind of evens out.”

This is the fifth season of the current Fox contract. The 10 World Series berths have been spread among nine teams, with the Dodgers appearing twice.

To a broadcast outlet, Thompson said, financial success in the World Series is not just about ratings.

“It’s about how good the matchup is and how long the matchup goes. The bulk of the advertising is sold up front (before we know the teams),” Thompson said. “Ratings for the series aren’t going to be a huge deal, unless you’re selling time in, say, Game 6 and Game 7, where you can really be jacking your rates.”

Last year’s Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series extended to seven games, attracting viewers amid a dramatic finish and ultimately getting a higher rating than the 2024 Dodgers-Yankees series, even though Canadian viewers weren’t included in that Nielsen count. The Dodgers-Yankees series lasted five games, and the Dodgers beat up on the Yankees when the Yankees weren’t beating themselves.

Even if the World Series itself might be worth less with more lower-profile teams competing, Thompson said MLB could include it as part of a larger package, or dangle it as an incentive for streaming outlets or other new bidders.

He also noted that the latest MLB collective bargaining proposal calls for fewer regular-season games and more postseason games.

“Playoffs are going to get you a premium over regular-season games,” Thompson said.

And, to the extent that postseason ratings might be in decline, ratings for everything — sporting events, awards shows, news shows, dramas, comedies, you name it — are in decline. Only the NFL is immune to lower ratings.

“Big events matter more than they used to, even with smaller audiences,” Desser said. “The World Series is still a big event, and there is a premium for that.”

The three most-watched shows on broadcast television in the week of Oct. 5-11, according to Nielsen: Sunday Night Football (Atlanta Falcons vs. Baltimore Ravens) with 17 million viewers; SEC Football (Alabama vs. Georgia) with 12 million viewers; NLCS Game 1 (Dodgers vs. Brewers) with 11 million viewers.

The top entertainment show that week: Tracker (CBS), with 7.4 million viewers.

The owners will make their money on the World Series, one way or another.

“Even at a lower expectation for audience, there is still going to be that value,” Desser said. “It’s one of the biggest things happening in October.”