Major League Baseball’s media rights deals could fundamentally change in the next few years.
According to a new report by The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, the league is considering a radical change to the way it sells its media packages: bundling domestic and international broadcast rights to attract a tech company like Apple or Amazon that is more interested in marketing MLB on a global scale rather than exclusively to an American market.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told The Athletic, “The explosion in popularity in Korea and Japan is going to create an opportunity to fundamentally change the way we sell our media rights. We’ve traditionally sold them in (individual) countries, and I think in 2028 they will be sold as part of an international package that will help us drive our media revenue in general.”
Like MLB’s set of domestic media rights deals with Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, its international deals also expire in 2028, giving the league an opportunity to sell both its domestic and international packages together. This wouldn’t make sense for a traditional media company, like incumbent Fox, who wouldn’t be able to leverage the full power of global MLB rights. But it would absolutely make sense for a large international company like Amazon, Google, Apple, or Netflix, which all have customers/subscribers across the globe.
“Particularly in a digital space, we’re going to sell the rights where we get the best deal,” Manfred said.
We’ve already seen these types of companies have more of an appetite for deals that are global in nature. Look at Apple’s MLS deal, for instance, which allows the company to sell MLS Season Pass subscriptions all over the world. Or more recently, Netflix’s deal with WWE’s Monday Night Raw, which similarly allows the streamer to broadcast the live events across the globe.
That type of reach is attractive for leagues too.
MLB’s national media rights deals are in a state of flux. ESPN recently opted out of its $550 million annual agreement with MLB, leaving the league to sell its premier package of regular season games, the Home Run Derby, and Wild Card round games to a short-term media rights partner or partners.
Then, of course, there’s upheaval in the local media rights markets. With regional sports networks on the to decline, and thereby local rights revenue for franchises, MLB needs to find a solution. Manfred has already suggested that the league wants to bundle the local rights of many ball clubs together to sell to a streamer in 2028. Could that be another sweetener in a potential domestic-international bundled package?
It would make sense. A potential broadcast partner could then capitalize on the local, domestic, and international revenue associated with MLB.
Needless to say, Manfred is considering all of his options. Come 2028, when MLB’s rights deals expire, one of baseball’s biggest advantages could be its appeal in international markets.
