CLEVELAND, Ohio — When free-agent first baseman Albert Pujols put himself up for auction, the Los Angeles Angels threw $254 million over 10 years at him.

That jaw-dropping paycheck was made possible, in part, because Fox Sports West is paying them $3 billion over 20 years for the rights to broadcast their games.

Last year, the Texas Rangers extended their rights agreement with Fox Sports Southwest, reportedly for $1.6 billion over 20 years and an ownership stake in the network.

That deal was at least part of the economics behind the Rangers committing $111 million for Japanese pitcher Yu Darvish.

Heated competition and demand for sports cable programming are driving up broadcasting rights fees. And some ball clubs find themselves flush in a sport with no limit on how much they can spend for players.

So where does all this leave the Indians?

To this point, the Tribe's cable deal has served more as a stabilizer than a windfall.

Tribe games are broadcast by SportsTime Ohio, which the Dolan family created in late 2005 rather than extend a contract with what is now Fox Sports Ohio. STO was launched with an eye toward boosting team finances.

''We think this is the way to generate more revenue, and we will put it back in the payroll in order to support the team," Indians Chairman and Chief Executive Paul Dolan said at the time.

Besides Indians games, STO programming includes coverage of the Browns, Ohio State, high school sports, the Mid-American Conference, golf and the outdoors.

In a recent interview, Dolan said the network has allowed the Indians to double their broadcasting rights fees since his family bought the club in 2000.

"It's provided a buffer for the team," he said.

Sellouts funded the Tribe of the '90s



In the '90s, a sold-out ballpark supported an annual payroll of $40 million to $50 million, he said. This season, he expects a payroll in the mid-$70 millions, with roughly half the attendance the team drew at its peak.

"And we can do that, sustainable in large part," Dolan said, "with what we're able to do with STO and television rights."

The Dolans, lawyers by trade, know cable. New York billionaire Charles Dolan, the brother of Indians owner Larry Dolan, is considered an industry pioneer for founding, among other ventures, Cablevision, HBO and the regional sports giant, the Madison Square Garden Network.

The Indians and STO have a common owner, but are private, independent enterprises. STO has paid the Indians about $30 million a year for broadcast rights since it was founded, although cable revenue does not go to the team.

Because local broadcasting income is used in calculating shared league revenue, Major League Baseball scrutinizes all club television and radio deals to make sure the network is paying fair market value, even if one entity owns both, like the Dolans.

Top regionals

Top five regional sports networks by net operating revenue and Indians' SportsTime Ohio:

Fox Sports Southwest

Madison Square Garden Network

Fox Sports West

SportsNet New York

Cable deals are based on a television market's size and local economy. The Cleveland-Akron market ranks 18th -- and 23rd among the 30 Major League Baseball teams -- according to the Nielsen Co., larger than only St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, San Diego, Kansas City, Milwaukee and Cincinnati. (New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and San Francisco-Oakland each have two teams and Toronto is not included.)

Detroit, which stunned the baseball world this past week by snapping up free-agent first baseman Prince Fielder with a nine-year deal worth $214 million, is the 11th-largest TV market.

The Tigers, according to published reports, are part of a 10-year, $1 billion broadcast rights deal sealed in 2008 with Fox Sports Detroit that includes the NBA Detroit Pistons and NHL Red Wings, although Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski said the TV deal didn't have a lot to do with signing Fielder.

Even longtime baseball columnist Peter Gammons suggested Tigers owner Mike Ilitch was being charitable by stretching the budget.

For the Indians to even approach a payday like the Angels and Rangers, someone would have to offer to buy all or part of STO and pay a huge premium for rights fees.

That's highly unlikely for a market this size, and wouldn't induce the Indians -- or other clubs in smaller cities -- to bid for expensive free agents like Pujols and Fielder anyway.

Just ask the team Fielder is leaving.

Milwaukee's TV deal couldn't pay for Fielder



"I think the answer is in our actions," Milwaukee Brewers GM Doug Melvin said. "We're just not able to. We love Prince. Prince is a helluva player . . . I'm not saying you can't do it. It makes it difficult."

Fox Sports Wisconsin pays the Brewers about $12 million per year for broadcasting rights.

"The TV contracts are the biggest difference," Melvin said. "All I know is ours doesn't come close to [the Angels, Rangers and other big-market teams]. We can't change our market. We're not going to be able to go and bring five million people to Milwaukee for a better TV market."

But there are rumblings about STO being in play. Since last summer, various media reports based on unidentified sources have said potential buyers or partners, including Time Warner Cable and Fox, have been talking to STO.

Dolan declined to comment on speculation about a sale or the timing.

"I've certainly seen all those reports. I've seen them for years," he said. "I can't speak to any specific discussions we've had over the years."

Both Fox and Time Warner, which already has a relationship with STO as a carrier of its programming and an advertising partner, have been aggressively ramping up their presence in so-called regional sports networks nationally.

A Time Warner spokesman in Akron responded by email that the company was "unable to comment" on possible interest in STO.

Henry Ford, Fox Sports Ohio's general manager, who is headed to San Diego to run a new regional sports network there, declined to comment, a spokeswoman responded in an email.

For what it's worth, there is no long-term rights agreement to delay a sale. The Indians-STO deal runs year to year.

According to estimates by SNL Kagan, which tracks the media and communications business, STO had about 3 million subscribers in 2011, with $85 million in operating revenue and $21 million in cash flow. STO generates most of its revenue from monthly fees that cable and satellite providers, like Time Warner and DirecTV, pay the network per subscriber.

Industry analyst Lee Berke, principal of LHB Sports Entertainment & Media Inc. in New York, said a regional sports network's value is typically 12 to 15 times cash flow.

Based on that formula, STO could be worth $250 million to $315 million -- even higher if based on SNL Kagan's 2012 cash-flow projections of $24 million. If STO was sold, it is unknown how much, if any, of the profit would go toward the Indians.

Compared to regional sports networks in larger media markets, those are average numbers. The Yankees' YES Network, for instance, produces annual revenues that exceed $450 million and has been valued at $1.5 billion to $2 billion. Closer to home, Fox Sports Detroit, with an estimated 3.5 million subscribers, $119 million in revenue and $30 million in cash flow, could be worth $360 million to $450 million, according to SNL Kagan.

The timing for teams to capitalize on broadcasting rights deals has never been better.

The cable industry is consolidating. Technology is allowing fans to follow their favorite teams on computers and handheld devices. Media markets may vary by size and economic stability, but the competition for customers is driving business across the board.

"The glue that's holding it all together," said New York media consultant Chris Bevilacqua, "is live sports."

And especially baseball, because the 162-game regular-season schedule provides so much programming.

To prevent the exodus of subscribers to the Internet, cable companies are paying a premium for broadcast rights. Time Warner, Fox, Comcast and DirecTV all own regional sports networks and are chasing more deals, increasingly in partnership with sports franchises.

In Houston, the Astros and NBA's Rockets left a Fox network to own close to 80 percent of a new Comcast-run sports network. And the Padres have reportedly struck a deal with the new Fox Sports San Diego that will double the club's annual rights fees to about $20 million, plus ad revenue.

Within the past two years, the industry has seen "almost a tipping point, some quantum leaps in terms of values being paid for all these various live sports rights," Bevilacqua said. "[Regional sports networks] are getting rights deals two times what they were getting just a few years ago."

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: blubinger@plaind.com, 216-999-5531