Months After ESPN Opt-Out, MLB May Increase Its National TV Exposure

When ESPN and Major League Baseball opted to end their long-time media partnership in February, both parties appeared to be at an inflection point.

MLB’s national relevance felt like it was shrinking. ESPN was looking to cut costs on some of its larger properties.

What a difference six months makes, though.

On Tuesday, Yahoo Sports’ Kendall Baker reported that MLB was close to finalizing the outstanding portions of its media rights agreement for the 2026-28 seasons. The highlights, via Baker:

• Apple’s Friday Night Baseball would not continue past the current season.
• NBCUniversal would take Friday game window, plus the former ESPN Sunday Night Baseball feature, and the Wild Card playoff round.
• Netflix would carry the Home Run Derby.
• ESPN would take over MLB.TV’s out-of-market streaming offering.

What It Means For MLB

It’s hard to fully evaluate these deals just yet, if only because we don’t have the financial details. But it seems highly likely that NBCUniversal will pay MLB something near to what it was getting from ESPN ($550 million per year) and Apple ($85 million per) under the previous arrangements.

Netflix’s portion would also add to that total, as would ESPN, buying MLB.TV. Overall, MLB is highly likely to make more money from this reworked deal compared to the existing ones.

Even if not, though, the move is still a win for baseball.

It trades limited streaming reach on Apple TV+ for potential broadcast reach on NBC (assuming it’s not a Peacock-only window). And then swaps cable for broadcast’s larger audiences on Sunday nights. The Home Run Derby also gets a potential upgrade that puts it in front of a younger audience on Netflix.

Among MLB’s previous gripes with ESPN was that it was “not pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB received on ESPN platforms” (via a memo from commissioner Rob Manfred). Appearing on NBC would potentially solve those issues.

NBC’s Sports Resurgence

NBC shuttered NBC Sports Network at the end of 2021 as it was losing NHL rights and consolidating programming and leveraging Peacock. Yet since then, it’s made aggressive moves to expand its sports footprint on TV.

Over the last few years, NBCU has acquired broadcast rights for the Big Ten Conference, NBA and WNBA, and now potentially MLB as well. The company now has so many tentpole sports properties that it is considering launching a cable sports network again (according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal).

A foothold with MLB on Sunday nights would also give NBC dominion over that night of the week year-round. Sunday Night Football would hand off to Sunday Night Basketball, which would give way to Sunday Night Baseball. Given what NBC has already managed while turning SNF into the NFL’s biggest weekly showcase, it’s easy to be optimistic about it doing the same for the NBA and MLB, elevating those matchups as well.

ESPN’s Everything App Gets Even Bigger

ESPN manages to have its cake and eat it here, shedding the pricey national TV deal with MLB while picking up what could be a lucrative out-of-market product in MLB.TV.

Leading up to the launch of ESPN’s new standalone streaming app, the company has been busy making the offering unavoidable for sports fans. In recent months, ESPN has added WWE events to its roster and acquired NFL Media properties like NFL Network and NFL RedZone (while also giving up 10% of the company to the NFL).

By tacking out-of-market MLB games onto the service much in the way it has already done with various niche and college sports rights plus the former NHL.TV out-of-market games, ESPN very much plans to win over fans with the sheer volume of content available within this streaming app.

Even more notable: Acquiring these out-of-market games allows ESPN to completely circumvent the need for a national media rights deal with MLB. If there’s an interesting matchup one night, it can simply utilize the app’s interface to give it the premium treatment and direct audiences there.

MLB rights, much like the NHL rights it already has, also give ESPN an even longer list of recognizable logos for viewers to see while scrolling through the app. In an environment where all consumer expenses are being scrutinized, the idea that you’ll get most MLB and NHL games on top of main ESPN feeds – even if you don’t need them all – is an appealing sales proposition.

Regardless of the financials involved, though, all sides seem to score a big win here. Assuming the sport doesn’t implode when the collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of 2026, of course.