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ESPN will begin its 36th season of broadcasting Major League Baseball on Thursday with a special Opening Day broadcast of a Brewers-Yankees game featuring Monday Night Football star Joe Buck in the broadcasting booth. If the network has its way, this won’t be its last season opener with the league.
Even after a bitter split last month between MLB and ESPN, ending their rights deal after the 2025 season and three years early, and the league quickly looking to resell those rights, the Disney-owned network still holds out hope of reviving its baseball ties.
It might look irrational given the vitriol involved in the contract split, especially considering ESPN’s desire to substantially reduce its $550 million annual MLB rights fee, and the league’s unwillingness to accept that. ESPN, however, believes its MLB coverage remains unmatched.
“There are very smart people that are trying to figure out ways to move forward with Major League Baseball,” said Karl Ravech, Sunday Night Baseball play-by-play announcer, on a season-preview press call. “That’s way above my pay grade to negotiate that, but I’m very optimistic about ESPN and Major League Baseball’s future.
“Who else provides any more coverage of baseball—with the exception of MLB Network—than ESPN does?” Ravech continued. “I’m just optimistic because of the platform that ESPN is and will be ‘Flagship.’ When you think about the entities that are [going to be] on that ‘Flagship’ … I don’t want to say it requires [baseball], but my goodness, if you’re a sports fan, you’re going to want to have [it].”
Terms of Engagement
There have been no formal talks between the two sides since the contract split was announced, industry sources told Front Office Sports. There is optimism, however, that conversations will pick up after Opening Day, when MLB and ESPN will be forced to be in more regular contact to coordinate logistics for the weekly Sunday Night Baseball broadcasts and other parts of the network’s rights in 2025.
ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro, meanwhile, conveyed similar sentiments recently, telling The Athletic, “If they are interested in re-engaging with us when the time is right, we’ll be ready to have that conversation.”
In the meantime, ESPN continues to prepare for a full-fledged season of broadcasting MLB in 2025—including a primetime Opening Day showcase featuring the defending champion Dodgers, fresh off a triumphant trip to Japan, against the Tigers and their ace pitcher Tarik Skubal.
“I just think the platform itself makes itself so valuable, and given this near-four-decade relationship we have with Major League Baseball that, in the end, that’s enough to get us to work something out,” Ravech said. “Whether it happens, I don’t know, but that’s sort of the way I’ve been thinking through it.”
