Television News & Rumors

Back in February, Major League Baseball and ESPN opted out of the final three years of their contract together. That deal is still in place through 2025, with ESPN carrying this year’s rights to Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby and the Wild Card round of the playoffs, but the rights for those events are up for grabs for the 2026-28 seasons. In May, it was reported that NBC had made an offer on that package.

Now it appears that the package may be split up and sold in separate parts, per Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. Nothing is finalized yet but Marchand reports that the league is in negotiations with several different broadcasters about the pieces that ESPN is currently carrying. He says that NBC/Peacock and Apple TV+ are the frontrunners for Sunday Night Baseball and the playoff games, while Netflix seems likely to get the Derby. ESPN, meanwhile, could stay in the baseball broadcast business by picking up some weekday games. Marchand adds that ESPN has interest in MLB.TV but doesn’t indicate if that interest is reciprocal. John Ourand of Puck also reports that Netflix is hoping to acquire the Japanese rights for the 2026 World Baseball Classic.

Breaking up broadcast rights into pieces is nothing new for the league. They have had deals with many broadcasters over the years and currently have deals in place with ESPN, Fox, ABC, TBS, Apple and Roku. Peacock/NBC had the rights to the early Sunday game not too long ago, before Roku took over that slot.

MLB was set to receive about $550MM annually from the ESPN deal. ESPN was looking to renegotiate, pointing out that Apple is only playing $85MM for its Friday night rights while Roku is only forking over $10MM annually. The ESPN package has more appeal. Like Apple and Roku, they get one game per week, but there’s only one game on Sunday nights while Apple/Roku have competition from the other contests. The Derby and the playoff games obviously make the package more valuable. Still, ESPN didn’t feel the price gap was appropriate. Per the May reporting linked above, ESPN was willing to pay about $200MM per year but not more.

MLB evidently felt it could beat that $200MM and perhaps may do so by splitting up the package into pieces. Time will tell if they can succeed. As mentioned, these deals are still being negotiated and Marchand doesn’t provide any specifics about the numbers being discussed.

One thing that has been consistent in stories about broadcast deals is that MLB doesn’t want to sign anything beyond 2028. Multiple reports have indicated that the league’s various broadcast deals expire after the 2028 season. As various clubs saw their regional deals collapse with Diamond Sports Group, now known as Main Street Sports, some re-signed but always on short-term deals. It seems the league hopes to be able to market a very large package, or packages, of broadcast components to various companies for the 2029 season and beyond. Marchand reports that the current negotiations are consistent with that approach, with nothing beyond 2028 being discussed.

There are many moving parts and it’s a notable situation to monitor going forward. Broadcast revenue is naturally a huge part of the game’s economic landscape and there could be many twists and turns in the coming years. The baseball world is expecting a lockout in the 2026-27 offseason, once the current collective bargaining agreement expires. Many believe that commissioner Rob Manfred and the owners would like to push the MLB Players Association to get a salary cap. A staredown between the league and the union could lead to cancelled games in 2027.

Manfred and the owners would have to balance their desire for that cap against their leverage in these deals. MLB has seen an uptick in popularity lately, including increased viewership ratings, often attributed to pace-of-play rule changes such as the pitch clock. Having that momentum would help the league in negotiations with broadcasters but a lengthy work stoppage and missed games would almost certainly hurt baseball’s popularity and cut into the league’s leverage in broadcast negotiations.

In February, MLB and ESPN each triggered an opt-out clause in their broadcasting agreement for the 2026-28 seasons. That means that as things stand, this is ESPN’s final year carrying MLB games. The network carries an exclusive regular season game every Sunday night, the Home Run Derby, and the Wild Card round of the postseason.

Joe Flint and Jared Diamond of The Wall Street Journal report that NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast, made MLB an offer this month for the package of games from which ESPN walked away. The length of the offer isn’t clear, nor are specifics on the rights fees. However, The Wall Street Journal reports that NBC’s offer was for “much less” than what ESPN currently pays. In February, Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported that ESPN would have owed $550MM annually for the 2026-28 seasons had it not opted out.

Obviously, ESPN determined that price was above market value when it opted out. The network said at the time that it was “open to exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.” Diamond and Isabella Simonetti of The Wall Street Journal reported in March that ESPN had indicated it was willing to pay a maximum of $200MM per season during renegotiations leading up to the opt-out date. MLB balked, and the sides agreed to terminate the contract after this season. NBC’s offer is evidently for well below $550MM per year. It’s unclear if it tops the $200MM annual sum which ESPN had floated.

ESPN has carried Sunday Night Baseball since 1990 and the Home Run Derby since ’93. It has broadcast the Wild Card round since that was introduced with the expanded playoff in the 2022 collective bargaining agreement. It seems NBC is interested in acquiring all three of those, though Flint and Diamond write that NBC is not pursuing international/radio rights or access to highlight clips that ESPN currently receives (partially justifying the lower bid).

NBC has an agreement with the National Football League for its Sunday Night Football slate. Last July, it reached an 11-year contract with the National Basketball Association for a package of 100 regular season games and the NBA All-Star Game. (That goes into effect during the upcoming basketball season.) According to The Wall Street Journal report, the network would stream some of its MLB games on its Peacock service when those games conflict with its other live sports. Those interested in the topic are encouraged to read the Wall Street Journal’s report in full.

Major League Baseball is reportedly discussing the possibility of licensing the streaming platform MLB.TV. Per a report from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, the league has discussed the possibility in talks with broadcasters/streamers. It’s unclear how MLB.TV consumers would be impacted if any deal is struck.

There are several moving parts in the league’s media strategy, most of them connected to the gradual pivot from regional sports networks (RSNs) to direct-to-consumer streaming. RSNs have been a massive part of the league’s business model for years but that has been chipped away at recently. Prior to streaming, many people ordered cable bundles which included baseball broadcasters, even if they didn’t watch the sport much. This was a big part of each club’s annual revenue streams and in some cases still is.

But with cord cutting and streaming, the league and teams have had to adjust. Main Street Sports, formerly known as Diamond Sports Group, was in bankruptcy for much of the past two years. They recently emerged from that status but with a smaller portfolio of MLB clubs under contract. Going into 2025, there are five teams that have no RSN deal and have MLB handling their broadcasts and streaming: the Guardians, Twins, Padres, Diamondbacks and Rockies.

Even the clubs that still have deals with Main Street aren’t committed for the long haul. It’s been reported that none of the current contracts go beyond 2028. MLB’s national deals with Fox and Turner are also set to expire after 2028. The same was true of ESPN, though that deal recently fell apart when both sides agreed to opt out, though ESPN is still broadcasting games through the 2025 season.

In addition to TV broadcasts, most clubs also have a direct-to-consumer streaming option of some kind. This week’s report from Marchand indicates that there are only three club that don’t have such a product available: the Astros, Nationals and Orioles.

MLB.TV has been around for decades, offering baseball fans the chance to pay one fee for the opportunity to stream all games, with some exceptions. Certain games have been carved out of MLB.TV if offered as exclusives on other platforms, while local blackout rules have also been in effect.

The hope of the league and commissioner Rob Manfred is that they can move away from blackouts, even in some sort of large package that resembles MLB.TV. There will be challenges in accomplishing that. Some teams still have very profitable RSNs and many of them are owned in whole or in part by the club itself. Such clubs would be reluctant to lumping their product together with less-popular clubs and effectively sharing their revenues.

There are many factors at play and the league is seemingly trying to get many buyers at the table. Back in November, Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported on the league’s long-term plans for getting a big deal done a few years down the road. He noted that executives from Apple, Amazon, CBS, Disney/ESPN, DirecTV, Fox, Netflix, NBC/Peacock, Roku, YouTube and Warner Bros.-Discovery were all present at the World Series.

MLB is seemingly open to various offers, perhaps from multiple companies. In recent years, they have split up their rights to companies like Fox, ESPN, Turner, Apple, Roku, YouTube and others, in addition to the local RSNs. It’s unclear exactly how MLB.TV would also fit into a new arrangement but it’s possible that the league could license it alongside other rights as part of a larger package. If a platform did license the rights, they might then market MLB.TV to consumers with other baseball games or even other sports, depending on the company and their portfolio. Speculatively speaking, Apple could license MLB.TV and then sell it to consumers but also include the Apple Friday Night Baseball games that currently aren’t available to MLB.TV subscribers. More information is likely to come out over time.

Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images

Major League Baseball and ESPN each opted out of their broadcasting contract covering the 2026-28 seasons. Barring a renegotiation, the upcoming season will be the final year of their partnership. Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported the news before either MLB or ESPN announced it.

MLB released a statement reading in part:

“We have had a long and mutually beneficial partnership with ESPN that dates back to its first MLB game in 1990. Unfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport’s appeal or performance on their platform.

Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement. … The positive energy around the sport has also led to significant interest from both traditional media companies and streaming services who would like to obtain rights to MLB games. We will be exploring those opportunities for a new agreement which would start in the 2026 season following the conclusion of ESPN’s agreement at the end of this year.”

ESPN said in a statement of its own that it “applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN’s industry-leading live events portfolio. … As we have been throughout the process, we remain open to exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.”

Clearly, the contract’s collapse stems from a disagreement on rights fees. Drellich and Marchand write that ESPN would have paid roughly $550MM annually had it not triggered an opt-out by March 1. The broadcast company sought to renegotiate, pointing to the much lower fees paid by Apple and Roku on its own deals. Apple pays $85MM annually for a pair of Friday night games that are carried on Apple TV+. Roku is paying $10MM per season for the right to broadcast one game on Sunday mornings.

ESPN’s television package was much more robust. The network carried the Sunday night game each week of the regular season (the only game in that time slot), the Home Run Derby, and the Wild Card round of the playoffs. That’s far more valuable than Apple’s pair of non-exclusive Friday night games or Roku’s Sunday morning slot. It’s not clear how far ESPN wanted to cut fees on a new deal, but that wasn’t of interest to the league.

Drellich and Marchand relay a memo that MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent to the league’s owners explaining the decision. In addition to differentiating between ESPN’s package and those of Apple and Roku, Manfred wrote that MLB has “not been pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms over the past several years outside of the actual live game coverage.” The commissioner wrote that he did “not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform.”

Manfred indicated that MLB has begun discussions with other platforms. ESPN had carried Sunday Night Baseball since 1990 and the Home Run Derby since ’93. The current contract was negotiated in 2021.