Nick Krall: Reds wage bill will be about the same in 2026 – Redleg Nation

This afternoon, the Cincinnati Reds announced the signing of their first free agent of the offseason, signing Keegan Thompson to a one-year contract worth $1,300,000. The reliever who pitched in Triple-A for all of 2025 with the Iowa Cubs wants depth in Cincinnati’s bullpen. Shortly after that deal was announced, it appears that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall met with local media as they all shared his statement that the 2026 payroll will be about the same as 2025. C. Trent Rosecrans of The Athletic appears to have been ahead of the others about reporting this with a matter of seconds.

Teams make most of their money from two things: television contracts and ticket sales. The television contract share goes beyond just the local deal, as everyone gets a share of the national contracts (both from “TV” and the MLB package).

The Cincinnati Reds’ ratings are soaring in 2025. We know this because the Reds and FanDuel Sports Network Ohio issued a press release about it. Nielsen reported that FanDuel Sports Network viewership rose 21% in 2025 compared to 2024. Much of that came from streaming, thanks to fans being able to purchase FanDuel Sports Network as a standalone channel instead of having to get it through a cable/satellite provider. Yet even on your “traditional” cable/satellite packages, viewership increased by 6%.

All of that should, in theory, mean more money for the Reds. But in reality, that may not be the case. That deal with FanDuel Sports Network was only for one year. To date, the club has not announced any plans to broadcast matches to fans in 2026. At this point in the year in 2024, the team had also not yet announced their 2025 plan, but it would soon be announced that they would be using MLB.com to stream their games online for fans, and that they would also have a ‘Reds’ channel for games on the local cable/satellite company packages. A few months later, that plan changed when they agreed to the deal with FanDuel.

All this to say that while Cincinnati probably has a general idea of ​​what their options are and what that likely means in terms of finances, it’s not certain. And that uncertainty is likely to keep them from pushing even more money to the center of the table.

As for ticket sales, they also increased in 2025 compared to 2024. In the 2025 season, the number of visitors increased to 2,170,963. That was an increase of 146,785 fans through the gates. The average ticket price for a Reds game in 2025 was about $25.50. Multiply those two together and it’s another $3.7 million. However, that ticket price is almost certainly not the only money the team makes from those fans. The Reds will also likely get some parking revenue, merchandise and food revenue. How much is an unknown answer, but it’s also fair to say that it probably won’t come close to the ticket sales part.

What all this tells us is that between an unknown television contract and a small, but not nothing, increase in ticket sales, the revenue increase probably wasn’t that much from what we do know and the unknown leaves a lot up in the air.

What it also tells us is that the idea of ​​Cincinnati going out and signing a free agent of note is probably a fever dream. While there are some contracts coming off the books, a handful of guys are getting raises in arbitration that are eating up a lot of that. And if payroll doesn’t go up, there just won’t be enough money to do much in free agency, and if the Reds want to acquire a difference-maker, it will have to be a trade for a player who still gets paid on his pre-free agency deal.