MLB missed its intended deadline of reworking its national media rights by the All-Star Game. Nonetheless, major decisions are soon arriving for the league, with the package being forfeited by ESPN expected to be broken up into multiple parts involving some of the biggest networks in the media business.
Commissioner Rob Manfred said to CNBC that Apple, ESPN, and NBC Sports are the three known bidders for the Sunday Night Baseball rights, a key portion of the current ESPN package. That comment confirmed prior expectations around the industry, with Apple potentially expanding upon its current Friday night rights, NBC perhaps reviving a historic relationship with the league, and ESPN looking to preserve its own MLB tie after a bitter divorce in February, albeit in a fundamentally different structure.
For ESPN in particular, that reworked package could include local rights, something that chairman Jimmy Pitaro has been keenly interested in, as it prepares to debut its direct-to-consumer service later this year. In Atlanta, during this week’s MLB All-Star Game events, several ESPN sources conveyed hope to Front Office Sports that a new deal could be struck and cheered an 11% bump this season in SNB viewership, but they cautioned that the negotiating process remains fluid.
“I’m still eternally optimistic until I’m told otherwise,” SNB broadcaster Karl Ravech said late last week in response to a FOS question. “I go back to what I said before. To me, it’s like the ark leaving with the animals. Baseball would want to be on the ark with all the sports animals, and we would want baseball on that ark. Nothing has changed for me, other than I know our [DTC] platform is coming. Our ratings success is wonderful. It’s a great story, so I remain optimistic.”
Fox, meanwhile, also has eyes on expanding its baseball presence. The network saw a slight viewership dip for Tuesday’s All-Star Game, but has also registered growth this year in its regular-season package. Fox is particularly interested in obtaining the MLB Home Run Derby rights, currently held by ESPN, if possible, and praised the audience bump for that event on Monday.
“We’ll see what MLB pulls out of its hat,” a Fox source tells FOS.
Decisions are now expected within the next several weeks, with Manfred working on the matter while attending the recent Sun Valley Conference in Idaho, which drew many top media executives. That timing would still allow the winning suitors sufficient time to prepare for next season, such as hiring additional talent and solidifying broadcast production logistics.
In any outcome, the forthcoming rights deals are expected to be a three-year bridge to 2028, when the rest of MLB’s national-rights deals expire, and Manfred is looking to fundamentally reconstruct the sport’s media rights.
