Led by commissioner Rob Manfred, Major League Baseball is banking its future on a big national television package that will take it into the 2030s. The league bet on itself this year by opting out of the final seasons of its deal with ESPN. But longtime MLB insider Jeff Passan is worried the league has already overextended itself, and the plan could backfire.
In a recent appearance on The Varsity podcast, Passan explained that while Manfred hopes to give baseball a “going-away present” in 2029 in the form of a lucrative new TV package that nationalizes all 30 teams’ games alongside the postseason and other “jewel events,” recent history tells us that will be easier said than done.
Passan highlighted the league’s questionable deal with Roku as a primary example.
“When it comes to media rights, in a number of areas, Major League Baseball has dropped the ball in recent years,” Passan said. “And I think the Roku deal is probably front and center of that.”
Roku reportedly pays just $10 million annually for its package. This season, Roku will air 14 games. The whiff on that deal comes from the fact that it brings in one-third of what MLB was previously making for a similar package from Peacock.
Before the $30 million Peacock deal, MLB also sold a small national package to Apple TV+ for $85 million per year.
Manfred may have inadvertently depleted the market for live MLB games by selling rights for so little. The Roku deal was repeatedly referenced around the mutual opt-out between MLB and ESPN earlier this year. ESPN was paying more than a half-million annually for a deal that allowed it also to air one national game per week, plus the Home Run Derby and Wild Card games.
Now, as Manfred ramps up to ideally sell even more inventory nationally, Passan believes he may be doing it at a below-market rate.
“You think, a single-game deal every week [can’t be a big mistake], but it was the consequence of that deal that had such repercussions,” Passan explained. “Rob Manfred is putting all of his eggs in one basket. He wants to go to the networks, to the streamers, to anyone who could potentially be the home of Major League Baseball and say, ‘You have one of the four major men’s sports in North America, and we can give you everything.'”
The commissioner has made no secret of his desire to bundle all 30 teams’ live local rights together for the next rights deals. This would be a first in major American sports, distributing an “NFL Sunday Ticket”-like product as part of a broader national package.
Passan understands MLB has an advantage given its impressive load of games.
“In theory … it is a very alluring package of content,” Passan said. “Major League Baseball has an advantage over every other sport, and that is an everyday endeavor. You know that every day, you are going to be getting, between pre- and postgame and everything else, a good, solid four hours of reliable content.”
However, ESPN’s MLB insider is skeptical that enough baseball fans will pay for a subscription when they have been used to having access to local games through their cable packages for years.
Football has proven that its fans will pay for new services and venture to new platforms to watch games. The NBA hopes the same will be true when it places games on Prime Video and Peacock starting this fall.
But with more habitual viewing and an older fan base, Passan may be correct to worry that MLB could lose fans by changing too much, too quickly. Instead, he believes baseball might be better off keeping the television package regionalized.
“If you are going to what is essentially a giant a la carte service, are people going to seek out baseball the way on Sundays, they seek out the NFL, The way on Saturdays, they seek out college football? Some sports just have this grip on the country,” Passan said. “That’s not baseball. Baseball is a local sport right now, that Rob Manfred is trying to take national, full-time.”
The flip side of Passan’s argument is that there is a growing base of people who never had cable, and will actually be more likely to watch something that is on digital and streaming platforms than a local network. Manfred is making a calculated guess that for all the fans he may lose taking local games off of FanDuel Sports Network, he will gain by putting them in front of the many millions of Prime Video or ESPN+ subscribers.
Passan is correct that the future of baseball hinges on Manfred’s final seasons as commissioner and the upcoming media-rights package. But his guess is as good as anyone’s as to what the right move will ultimately be.
