The most recognizable agent in baseball is sending a message.
Scott Boras reps some of MLB’s most talented bunch. He secured a $765 million deal for Juan Soto in 2024, the largest ever for a baseball player. In his 40-plus years representing players during contract negotiations, he’s secured billions of dollars for his clients. He’s one of the only agents that casual baseball fans actually know by name.
So when he speaks out about the league, especially as it stares down possible labor strife following the 2026 season, it’s wise to listen.
Boras did just that on Foul Territory earlier this week. Addressing a potential work stoppage following this year, Boras pointed to MLB’s media rights situation as a possible panacea for any quibbles over revenue between the owners and players. “All the ills of what the owners struggle with today will be resolved and it will not be a labor issue,” if the league is able to meaningfully increase its media rights revenue, Boras claims.
Scott Boras uses the NBA’s media rights deal to explain how MLB’s inability to acquire its true valuation is playing into labor issues.
“They offered the league, and we offer regional. Consequently, we’re getting half. If we have $20B to deal with versus $4B, all the ills of… pic.twitter.com/HuYpGUb4ma
— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) February 10, 2026
The problem? In his estimation, MLB’s current set of media rights deals are severely undervalued.
“Our media rights were exposed. Our inability to acquire the true valuation of our media rights was exposed by the NBA contract,” Boras claimed, citing the NBA’s recent 11-year, $76 billion agreements. “They got $8 billion because they offered the league. We offer regional. And so consequently, we’re getting half at $4 billion. And yet our content is double, and yet our ratings are there.”
Boras is correct in his assessment that the value of NBA rights lies in its national packages, while MLB rights are mostly a regional affair. But it’s perhaps a jump in logic to assert that national MLB inventory should be valued the same as the NBA’s. In fact, this very issue was litigated this time last year, when ESPN decided to exit its Sunday Night Baseball deal with MLB. ESPN was paying $550 million per year for the league’s premier nationally televised package. But when MLB resold the inventory to NBC for the next three years, the league only got $200 million for it. Broadcasters simply don’t value nationally televised MLB games during the regular season.
Boras then discussed MLB’s global reach.
“We also offer 200 million people more from Asia, Korea, Taiwan, Japan, and Canada. Those are markets that the NFL and the NBA do not own. They don’t own Canada. They don’t own Asia. They don’t own that like we do. And so we offer that to all the media conglomerates, where they can take their product and optimize it by this grand market that no other sport has. What’s the value of that? The value of that was not ascertained. That’s the problem with our sport. Because if we have $20 billion to deal with versus $4 [billion], all the ills of what the owners struggle with today will be resolved and it will not be a labor issue.
“And so, in 2028 we’re going to have something that gives us definition. Clear definition as to what the revenues of this game are. And therefore, we’ll have the ability then to adjust and know more about what our labor situation would be, and how the inner workings of that should apply for equities for all clubs. So the real issue for me is how do we define the revenues of the game and how do we optimize it. And how do we setup a system that is far different than what we’ve used before to negotiate, truly negotiate, the value of our rights, which will then propel this game to levels that it’s never seen.”
Here’s where Boras is spot on. MLB’s global reach, especially in the Asian markets, can potentially command a much larger media rights valuation for the right buyer. If, say, Amazon or Apple or Google wanted to make a play for global MLB rights, they’d be worth a lot more than the domestic rights alone.
There’s also something to be said about the timing of MLB’s current rights deals. The primary national rightsholders — Fox and TNT Sports — negotiated their deals several years prior to the NBA’s deals, which started in 2025. The media rights marketplace changed substantially in the intervening years, with valuations for NFL and NBA rights going through the roof. MLB negotiated its agreements under the previous paradigm, before that explosion.
No doubt, any substantial increase to the league’s media rights revenue would go a long way towards labor stability. But the timing is off. A new CBA will have to be reached prior to any new media rights deals. It’s difficult to forecast what the market for rights will look like in 2028, when MLB’s deals expire, especially with the NFL looking to take its rights to market early.
That uncertainty will make the forthcoming labor negotiations tricky. But if Scott Boras is right, the league should be able to give a compelling argument to the players that everyone will benefit from a massive media rights windfall in two years.
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.