Brewers owner Mark Attanasio talks TV situation, Pat Murphy extension
Milwaukee Brewers owner Mark Attanasio said the team estimated a minus-$20 million impact from the TV situation this season in terms of revenue/expenses.
The Milwaukee Brewers are experiencing a $20-million loss by going away from a regional sports network for their television deal and bringing everything in-house as part of MLB Advanced Media.
Brewers principal owner Mark Attanasio for the first time publicly acknowledged during a wide-ranging interview prior to opening day March 26 the financial impact for 2026 after the team switched the production of their own broadcasts to MLB, but he said the revenue loss did not impact payroll.
“It actually didn’t [impact] us this year,” Attanasio said. “It probably shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was late breaking news. So we budgeted otherwise, but we were already in the process of doing things. We have a lot of flexibility in our balance sheet. We manage the club that way. Sometimes your greatest strength is your biggest weakness. Everybody is, ‘Payroll, payroll, payroll,’ but we have a very strong financial position. And so when surprises come up like that – and that was about a $20-million surprise – it does not affect how we plan for the offseason.”
The $20-million difference, Attanasio said, is between lost revenue and higher expenses to produce games in-house.
The Brewers were not impacted greatly in terms of 2026 payroll, which took a slight bump year-over-year, because of their organizational finances, which effectively boil down to value of the team and revenue versus debt, Attanasio added.
“It’s a pretty big one off. We don’t like $20-million negative surprises,” he said. “When we talk about this strength financial position card, I was talking about balance sheet, but the strength of our fan base, our sponsorship group that comes to support us, makes a big difference. And our investor group, we’re a very strong, well-heeled investor group, so I also know if we need extra capital for, I guess you just used to call it a rainy day. We don’t have too many rainy days here. We’ve got a roof.”
The Brewers enter 2026 with an estimated $129-million payroll, up from $123 last year, according to FanGraphs. That’s a 4.8% increase, whereas the average returning League Championship Series club has averaged a 9% payroll bump the season following their ALCS or NLCS appearances the past 15 years.
The Brewers had one of the highest year-over-year increases of any of those teams back in 2019 when they upped payroll by 34.7% after reaching Game 7 of the NLCS. Attanasio was asked about the disparity between that increase and this year’s.
“There’s definitely a correlation between money and success,” he said. “That said, I think we were 23rd in payroll last year and we had the most wins. What we’ve done every year is looked at our roster and how things fit. With the youth of the team and where everybody is in the arc of their career, there really weren’t a lot of spots to fill.”
Attanasio talks about potential salary cap
Attanasio, who confirmed he is one of select owners on the labor committee responsible for negotiating the next collective bargaining agreement with the MLB Player’s Association, spoke on the impending off-season negotiations, which are expected to be fierce, and a potential salary cap.
“I’ve said it a lot of times,” Attanasio said. “We’re going to compete whatever the system is. We are. We’re competing right now. We’ve been to the playoffs seven of eight years. If there’s a cap, we’ll compete as well. That will have its own challenges. Nothing is easy. It’s not like, ‘Oh, you’re a small market, you’ll compete better in that system.’ You have to run the team properly. Pat Murphy all the way down to the coaches in the Dominican complex and Matt Arnold and his group, we’re set up to compete.”
But would he support a cap?
Attanasio walked a middle line in his answer, but also didn’t turn down seeing potential benefits to it.
“A cap and floor system is a revenue sharing system. That’s what it is,” Attanasio said. “You reallocate revenues among clubs and you reallocate revenues to players. A club like ours, depending on where the midpoint is and what the floor is, we have to spend more money to get to a floor. So that has its challenges, but it also has opportunities because at the top end teams have to spend less. Either way, we have to compete. I don’t get way beyond [that]. They haven’t even had the first meeting yet with players. It’s not only early innings, it’s pregame.”
What about Matt Arnold’s contract?
When the Brewers announced the promotion of Matt Arnold to president of baseball operations following the conclusion of last season, he declined to comment on whether the bump in title came with an extension.
Attanasio, commenting on it for the first time, did the same in his press conference March 26.
“I’d say that, just stepping back rather than making it individual to any one person, we really look to have stability across the board,” Attanasio said. “Stability allowed us to, when we had a manager and president of baseball opening, to just promote within. It starts with that. Matt and Murph had been here for nine years at the times of those promotions. Murph has been the manager of the year twice. It speaks for itself, the record.
“Sure, we absolutely felt it was critical to extend [Murphy]. Also richly deserved. I believe in rewarding people for a job well done and nobody in the National League has done a better job than Pat Murphy the last two years. He knows how to develop young players, and you can see it.
“Matt, also as the executive of the year the last two years, that speaks for itself – and that’s for all of baseball. Relative to contracts, whether it’s for Matt or [president of business operations] Rick Schlesinger or [chief operating officer] Marti Wronski, we don’t talk about those.”
