ESPN has reentered the fray for Major League Baseball broadcasting rights, several months after the network and the league mutually opted out of their current deal, which was originally set to expire in three years.
This week, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred spoke with CNBC, revealing that three broadcast partners were negotiating for those expired rights, and that one of them — along with NBC and Apple — is ESPN, the current rightsholder of “Sunday Night Baseball,” the Home Run Derby and the wild-card playoff round.
Manfred elaborated that he’d like to finalize those rights, currently valued at $550 million a year for the next three years, within the next 30 days, and that the rights could be split between two bidders.
“Our goal would be to accumulate all of our rights (national and local), go to the table, and develop in concert with the potential buyers packages that are most valuable to them,” Manfred said. “I think our goals would be to have more national exposure, increase our reach.
“In addition, we think we have a cluttered environment right now. There’s a lot of places you have to go if you’re a fan of a particular team, and we think that we should strive to create a more fan friendly environment.”
ESPN reentered the picture partially due to its desire to become a home for local distribution digitally of individual MLB teams, as several are in the process of disconnecting from regional sports networks — opening the door for ESPN to fill that gap with its streaming services.
That represents a drastic 180 for both ESPN and the MLB, after Manfred distributed a memo (acquired by The Athletic) critical of the network following their split this spring.
“Unfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport’s appeal or performance on their platform,” the statement said in part. “Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement.”
Per CNBC, ratings are up 6 percent for MLB games on ESPN this season, while the Home Run Derby was up 5 percent itself. The average MLB broadcast is attracting 1.71 million viewers, the highest average in eight years.
MLB’s other main broadcast partner on linear TV is Fox.