MLB owners will be circling late-May on their 2027 calendars.
That’s when a potential lockout could reach its 60th missed game, which we now know will be a key threshold for the league during labor negotiations. According to a report by Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand in The Athletic, 60 missed games is the point in which MLB’s national media rights deals with Fox, TNT Sports, and others would automatically extend for another year. As a result, MLB would theoretically be stuck under its current broadcast arrangements for an extra season, and the league would miss out on potentially billions of dollars in additional media revenue it expects to earn when it negotiates new deals.
The league’s current TV contracts expire after the 2028 season, but if 60 games are lost next season due to labor strife, clauses in the contracts would trigger an extension to 2029. The presence of these contractual provisions was first reported by Forbes in July, though the threshold of missed games to trigger the clauses were not known.
The 60-game threshold will now serve as a significant point of leverage for the players should labor negotiations drag into next season. Owners will be reluctant to sacrifice the expected media rights windfall coming after the 2028 season by a full year, which could compel them to reach a deal sooner rather than later.
However, the owners still have some protections built into the TV contracts. As was previously reported, networks will still pay MLB for next season, even if games are not being played. Therefore, owners won’t immediately feel the same financial burden as the players once games are missed. Revenue streams like gate receipts, parking, and concessions will dry up, but media revenue won’t.
Should the entirety of next season be missed, networks will still pay MLB in full for 2027 but would not pay at all for the 2029 season bolted onto the end of the current contracts. If MLB begins play after missing more than 60 games next season, the networks would pay a reduced rate in 2029.
The Athletic outlines that even if MLB ends up missing more than 60 games next season, the league could still find a way to start new long-term deals after the 2028 season, as is currently planned. This could involve MLB taking “a big haircut in the first year of a new contract” to make broadcast partners whole for missed games in 2027. Networks, however, would be doing the league a favor by striking new deals early rather than accepting the 2029 season at a bargain rate. As such, this scenario seems relatively unlikely; it would seemingly depend on all of MLB’s current national partners wanting to reach long-term extensions, and it would complicate any reshuffling of inventory that MLB would like to do as part of its new deals. Still, the possibility is there.
In any case, the 60-game threshold now presents itself as a significant bargaining chip for the players. Owners will be reluctant to miss out on a full year of higher national media revenue, which could amount to billions more than the around $2 billion per year the league earns from its current deals.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.