MLB’s current media rights deal with ESPN runs through the 2028 season, but either party can opt-out and end the deal after 2025.
Per The New York Post, both ESPN and MLB have opt-outs in the deal after the 2025 season. ESPN is paying $550 million per season in the current agreement, which began with the 2022 season.
$100 million of that deal is tied up in the Wild Card round of the playoffs, which is between eight and 12 games long each October.
ESPN got a good deal compared to both Fox Sports and Warner Bros. Discovery, who both ponied up significant increases to MLB in their latest rights deals, also running through 2028. Fox is paying an average of $730 million per season, up 40% from the last deal, while WBD is paying $470 million, up 65%. ESPN’s $550 million deal is a decrease of around 20% from its prior deal, though the company is only airing 30 exclusive regular-season games.
The Post opines that ESPN could walk away from the MLB deal after 2025 in part to free up money for the NBA and the expanded College Football Playoff. But when ESPN renewed its MLB deal two years ago, the company knew when its NBA deal expired and that the league would likely be seeking a significant increase, and it knew that the College Football Playoff would likely be expanding.
MLB using its end of the opt-out seems unfeasible. The league would likely be able to find soft landings for both the Wild Card round of the playoffs and the Home Run Derby, but the Sunday night package could be a tougher sell. The league had plenty of issues finding a home for the weeknight games ESPN cut loose, eventually striking deals with Apple and Peacock for exclusive Friday night and Sunday morning packages.
Despite links to many companies (including Barstool), the non-exclusive midweek package of games never got sold. The Tuesday TBS package and assorted weeknight games on Fox, FS1, and MLB Network wound up filling the national schedule.
Would another company jump into the pool for MLB’s Sunday night package? Fox or TBS expanding their MLB package doesn’t seem very likely. If Apple or Peacock wanted the games, I’d assume they’d be interested in place of their current deals, rather than in addition to them. Amazon? YouTube? Sure, throw them in the mix, why not?
One possible reason to be hopeful about the relationship between ESPN and MLB is streaming, most notably ESPN+ and the eventual ESPN direct-to-consumer (DTC) streaming service. ESPN’s current deal with MLB includes one non-exclusive game daily on ESPN+, and ESPN could look to get into the local rights game as the Diamond Sports Group, and many regional sports networks (RSN) as a whole, continue to struggle across the country.
If the local broadcast/DTC strategy pursued by many teams over the last few months, including the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz, and Vegas Golden Knights, doesn’t bear fruit, that could get interesting. Might teams like the Arizona Diamondbacks and San Diego Padres (whose rights are currently held by MLB, which also produces and distributes the games locally) look towards ESPN a potential savior?
ESPN cutting ties with MLB would be a shocking development. The Sunday Night Baseball franchise has existed since 1990 and axing it to make room for a potentially smaller, more expensive NBA package and/or a handful more college football games would be stunning.
That would definitely be the final mark on ESPN’s de-emphasis of baseball coverage over the last several years. That truly began with Baseball Tonight being removed from the daily schedule and shifted to a Sunday-only show back in 2017.
