Fox COO: Company Will ‘Look At’ ESPN MLB Rights

Fox Sports is already eyeing ESPN’s Major League Baseball media properties.

ESPN and MLB are headed for a divorce after 35 years in business together. That means ESPN’s rights to the Home Run Derby, Sunday Night Baseball, and wild-card playoff games will come up for grabs as early as next season. 

When Fox Corp. COO John Nallen was asked at an industry conference if the media giant was interested in additional sports rights, he pointed to ESPN’s expiring package.

“Baseball has been a great product for us, and we’ll probably look at that and look at it in the context of how it makes sense to us overall,” said Nallen at the Deutsche Bank Media, Internet & Telecom Conference.

Pursuing ESPN’s rights would be a natural fit for Fox. The network is already MLB’s biggest media partner, paying $729 million per year for the regular season, All-Star Game, and World Series. Fox’s coverage of the 2024 World Series between the Dodgers and Yankees averaged 15.8 million viewers, up 67% from the year before, marking the best viewership since 2017.

But don’t count out NBC Sports and Amazon Prime Video either. As Ryan Glasspiegel explored last week, NBC has a long and illustrious TV history with the Grand Old Game dating back to 1947. Landing Sunday Night Baseball in addition to its NFL and NBA properties would enable NBC to offer a premium live sporting event on Sunday nights year-round.

Sources say Prime wants to continue adding live premium sports rights, given its success with the NFL, and its successful bid to land the NBA starting next season.