ESPN, MLB each have an opt-out in rights deal following 2025 season

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https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/mlb...fter-2025.html

Either ESPN or MLB could opt out of their seven-year rights deal, running through 2028, following the 2025 season.

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Where have ESPN’s baseball personalities disappeared to?

By Jesse Pantuosco on 10/06/2023

The MLB playoffs are here, but watching Get Up and First Take, both staples of ESPN’s morning programming, you’d never know it.

What’s so infuriating is that ESPN used to be a breeding ground for baseball talent, an incubator producing household names like Steve Berthiaume, Jayson Stark, John Kruk, Brian Kenny, Orel Hershiser, Adnan Virk and Rick Sutcliffe. Which begs the question, where did they all go? Regardless of where they disappeared to (most were poached by competitors), ESPN never bothered to replace them, failing to develop new personalities while squandering the ones they had, reducing veteran reporter Buster Olney to moving scenery.

Cognizant of its precarious position as a sport in crisis, MLB has heard your complaints, making sincere efforts to improve its product, hoping to attract a younger audience with shorter games, higher scoring and a viral presence on social media. ESPN is a known brand and one of the few platforms big enough to truly grow the game. However, what could be a fruitful relationship continues to be undermined by ESPN’s reluctance to step out of its comfort zone, treating MLB not as a partner, but as filler content to get through the lean summer months, finger foods offered as appetizers before the main course.

You might need prescription lenses to see it, but, truthfully, the writing’s been on the wall for years with ESPN making a conscious effort to distance itself from MLB, broadcasting fewer games (only Sunday nights with the exception of Opening Day and this week’s Wild Card slate) while dramatically scaling back Baseball Tonight, a fan favorite once considered the gold standard for MLB studio shows. With streamers like Apple and Peacock expanding their broadcast horizons, circling the live-event space like hawks, it wouldn’t be a surprise if ESPN soon punted on baseball altogether, declining to renew its rights deal with MLB when it expires in 2029.

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ESPN reportedly leaning towards opting out of MLB contract

With the rights fee market going through a squeezing, ESPN could look for more bang for their buck from Major League Baseball.

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Originally Posted by TMC

ESPN reportedly leaning towards opting out of MLB contract

With the rights fee market going through a squeezing, ESPN could look for more bang for their buck from Major League Baseball.

SBJ's John Ourand predicts ESPN will walk away from MLB, NBC will step up:

ESPN exercises the out in its MLB deal

ESPN and MLB have an “out” clause in their deal after the 2025 season. By the end of this year, ESPN will let MLB know that it will exercise that out in 2025. This does not mean that ESPN will walk away from MLB in 2025. But it does mean that ESPN will try to negotiate a lower rights fee.

NBC will carry more MLB games

Peacock’s deal for Sunday morning MLB games is over, and the league has been shopping it to other media companies. Look for NBC to renew that deal, but only if it can carry more of those games on its broadcast channel. Given the likelihood that ESPN will opt out of its deal after the 2025 season, MLB wants to maintain its relationship with one of the big broadcast networks.

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Karl Ravech explains why he misses nightly ‘Baseball Tonight’ format

"I’m grateful people remember it fondly, and I’m saddened by it, too, that none of it exists in that way anymore."

By Reice Shipley on 07/07/2024

Prior to 2017, ESPN’s top baseball studio show, Baseball Tonight, was aired nightly throughout the season to show baseball fans some of the most important action each night in the MLB. But now, the show solely acts as a pregame show for the network’s live MLB broadcasts, such as Sunday Night Baseball, which old Baseball Tonight host Karl Ravech is somewhat upset about.

Last month, Ravech responded to a post on Twitter about the old Baseball Tonight format with a caption reading ‘Remember when Baseball Tonight aired every single night and it was just an hour of highlights and we were a proper society?’

In response to this post, Ravech promptly said that he remembers the format “like it was yesterday”.

Ravech, who now holds several key roles at ESPN regarding the network’s baseball coverage, including being the play-by-play voice of Sunday Night Baseball, explained his reasoning for this tweet in a recent conversation with Chad Finn of The Boston Globe.

“I’ll be honest,” said Ravech, “That tweet was obviously a reaction to the program, which I know they loved. And I understand that with the people that were on it, with Peter [Gammons] and Harold [Reynolds] and [John Kruk] and [Bobby] Valentine. There was no other place to get something like that.

“But it felt almost as much about the difference in the temperature of the country and the world back then that people were also longing for, as opposed to the climate we all live in today and the animosity that’s everywhere. It was about both things. I’m grateful people remember it fondly, and I’m saddened by it, too, that none of it exists in that way anymore.”

There was truly a time when ESPN was the worldwide leader in baseball coverage, thanks to Baseball Tonight. We at Awful Announcing even listed Baseball Tonight as a top-10 ESPN show in the history of the network.

Outside of Sunday Night Baseball, the network’s baseball coverage is certainly lacking a bit. Given Ravech’s background as the longtime host of Baseball Tonight, it’s fairly understandable that he is somewhat saddened by how much things have changed over the years.

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MLB warns ESPN it could walk away from deal if network exercises opt-out

The league currently gets $550 million per year from ESPN.



By Drew Lerner on 02/06/2025

The future of Major League Baseball’s national media rights deal is looking more uncertain.

According to a report by Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand in The Athletic, the league is threatening to walk away from a new deal with ESPN should the network exercise its opt-out following the 2025 season.

Under the current terms of the agreement, both ESPN and MLB have an option to opt-out of the seven-year deal, ending the current contract that is set to go through 2028 after the 2025 season concludes. Should either side seek to exercise its option, they’d have to do so in March of this year.

Considering MLB’s posturing, it’s unlikely they have any interest in exercising the opt-out. However, it’s long been rumored that ESPN is likely to opt-out and attempt to restructure a more favorable deal with the league. ESPN currently pays the league $550 million per season for its media rights package which includes Sunday Night Baseball and a Wild Card series in the postseason.

For comparison, Fox pays approximately $728 million per year for its package which includes the World Series and an LCS, in addition to early round playoff and regular season games. Warner Bros. Discovery pays $535 million per year for its package which includes an LCS and non-exclusive regular season games.

Last year, John Ourand of Puck reported ESPN was upset in the value it receives from its package compared to other broadcasters. After all, ESPN’s package is not all too different from Apple, which pays a considerably less expensive fee of $85 million per year for exclusive Friday night games.

The Athletic report mentions ESPN’s interest in local MLB rights as the network prepares to launch “Flagship,” its direct-to-consumer streaming service, this fall. However, most clubs are tied into deals beyond next season — especially ones that could be seen as subscription-drivers for ESPN’s future streamer.

Should MLB walk away from a deal with ESPN, the league would be searching for ways to recoup more than half-a-billion dollars per year in lost revenue. That won’t come easy in today’s television landscape.

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What happens if ESPN exits MLB contract?

And would that be a mistake for the Worldwide Leader?

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MLB, ESPN opt out of TV deal for 2026-28; MLB cites ‘minimal coverage’

Major League Baseball and ESPN have “mutually agreed” to end their national television deal after the upcoming 2025 season, according to a memo baseball commissioner Rob Manfred sent to his owners Thursday afternoon that was obtained by The Athletic.

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5 MLB broadcast partner options after ESPN break-up (Hint: a lot of streamers)

Blake Schuster
February 20, 2025 9:33 pm ET

Commissioner Rob Manfred sent a memo to all 30 clubs informing them MLB is opting out of a broadcast partnership with ESPN following the 2025 season. According to The Athletic, Manfred cited ESPN’s request to lower the rights fees as a key catalyst while arguing the network hasn’t done enough to highlight the sport.

“We have not been pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms over the past several years outside of the actual live game coverage,” Manfred wrote.

MLB and ESPN are in a seven-year deal worth $550 million annually that began in 2021. The two have been broadcast partners dating back to 1990. While both Manfred and ESPN left the door open to further negotiations, it sure seems like MLB is going to need a new home for the Home Run Derby, Wild Card playoff round and marquee regular season games — including Sunday Night Baseball.

Here’s a look at the landscape and where MLB might land next.

NBC/Peacock

NBC has attempted bids on MLB rights twice in the past few decades, failing to secure a package in 2007 and 2014. Might the network take another run this time around? The launch of its Peacock streaming service, and a renewed interest in live sports with the return of the NBA on NBC, makes the network a logical suitor once again. NBC also wouldn’t mind Sunday Night Baseball as complement to Sunday Night Football, at least until the fall scheduling conflicts kick in.

Amazon Prime

Amazon Prime has found its footing in the live sports world with Thursday Night Football and has already sunk $3 billion into NFL and NBA rights. Could MLB be next? It depends on what it brings to the table. Even if it added a studio show, it’s hard to see how Amazon gets baseball in front of more fans than ESPN, but if the investment is big enough, MLB will have to listen.

If nothing else, this should give us a good look at just how far into live sports Amazon Prime is willing to push.

Netflix

Netflix carries all the same concerns as Amazon Prime, but the streaming giant’s foray into live sports has mostly focused on one-offs like the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight and NFL Christmas Day games, with the exception of WWE.

It wouldn’t be stunning to see Netflix make a similar pitch to baseball as it did for pro wrestling, but again, the exposure becomes an issue.

TNT/Max

Would losing NBA rights lead Turner Sports to expanding its MLB portfolio? The infrastructure is already there with TBS, as is the streaming capabilities with Max. This could be a perfect marriage — assuming the money is right for both sides.

CBS/Paramount+

Granted, CBS already has a very crowded spring schedule with March Madness and The Masters, but this would give MLB the type of exposure it’s seeking — especially when you consider Paramount’s penchant for special Nickelodeon-themed broadcasts to reach younger audiences. The Paramount+ streaming service is very attractive, and CBS has proven it can build around tentpole events given all of its soccer coverage.

• In MLB-ESPN split, baseball’s media strategy to blame

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Originally Posted by TMC

5 MLB broadcast partner options after ESPN break-up (Hint: a lot of streamers)

• In MLB-ESPN split, baseball’s media strategy to blame

Where will MLB take its newly available media rights after ESPN breakup?

On Thursday evening, reports surfaced that Major League Baseball and ESPN had “mutually agreed” to part ways following the 2025 MLB season.

Whether that decision was as mutual as Commissioner Rob Manfred made it out to be in his memo to MLB’s 30 owners is highly debatable. But what isn’t debatable is the ripple effect this decision will have on the sports media rights market and several media companies’ live sports content strategies in the coming years.

This piece will attempt to rank the most likely spots the league could take its newly available media rights, which include a premier package of exclusive regular season games in Sunday Night Baseball, the Wild Card round of the postseason, and key events like Opening Day and the Home Run Derby.

Per Manfred’s internal memo, MLB will be looking toward broadcast networks and streamers for its new deal to avoid the “shrinking platform” that is cable television.

So, without further ado, here are the possible landing spots for MLB beginning in the 2026 season:

1. Amazon/Prime Video

The streamer seems like a natural landing spot for MLB’s available inventory. Per John Ourand of Puck, Amazon has already had informal conversations with the league about ESPN’s old package, though the streamer still primarily has its eyes on 2028, when all of MLB’s national contracts come up, and there should be enough local rights available to bundle together some nationalized package.

When one looks at Amazon’s sports lineup come 2026, baseball would fit right in. Prime Video will have the rights to Thursday Night Football during the fall and winter and exclusive NBA games that will take them into the spring, but then nothing to fill its summer programming gap before TNF starts up again. Baseball, of course, could help fill this gap and mitigate churn for Prime Video.

But perhaps more importantly, if Amazon gets into the baseball business now, they have a foot in the door to gobble up their preferred local and national rights come 2028. The streamer has already shown plenty of interest in getting into business with MLB through an agreement with the FanDuel Sports Networks, which could make a short-term agreement for ESPN’s old inventory a logical next step.

2. NBC/Peacock

Like Amazon, NBC has a summer-sized programming gap to fill regarding Peacock, the network’s streaming service. Such programming gaps likely take on an outsized importance for NBC, who, unlike Amazon Prime, is purely reliant on its content to prevent churn. Baseball offers some flagship programming during a slow time of year and can nicely bridge the gap between the NBA and NFL seasons. For MLB, NBC can offer both the broadcast network and the streaming service that they seek.

However, NBC recently dropped its Sunday morning MLB package on Peacock, which it only paid $30 million per year for. This package will likely cost at least ten times more than that, but it also includes higher-quality inventory than its old semi-exclusive package, which is now housed on Roku.

So, while baseball might make sense from a churn-mitigation perspective, the financials will have to make sense for NBC, who will be spinning off its cash-flow juggernaut cable businesses in the next year. Peacock already finds itself well in the red, and adding even more expensive sports media rights to its portfolio might not satisfy investors from a P/L perspective.

3. CBS/Paramount+

CBS and its streaming service, Paramount+, might be an attractive option for MLB as, like NBC and Peacock, it would check both the streaming and broadcast network boxes. The wildcard here is Paramount’s new ownership situation. With Skydance prepared to take over, there may be more of an appetite to make a splashy play for sports rights, such as the premier regular season MLB package.

Once again, it’ll help summer churn between the conclusion of March Madness and football season — though Paramount already has a decent portfolio of summer sports programming with the PGA Tour and two golf majors. Baseball would certainly help bolster that programming lineup, especially during a down time for international soccer, which is Paramount+’s best churn-mitigation property throughout the rest of the year.

4. The CW or ION

Perhaps a sleeper pick in baseball’s search for a new rightsholder are the so-called “netlets” like The CW or ION. They both fulfill Manfred’s broadcast network desires, and might be willing to pay a premium as compared to the traditional media companies to gain a legitimate package with a “Big 4” North American sports league.

As Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch pointed out in his column on the matter, The CW recently drew 1.8 million viewers for its opening race of the NASCAR Xfinity Series last week — a number that beats out ESPN’s average Sunday Night Baseball audience from last season (1.5 million).

So, while signing on with a “netlet” might be an ego hit for MLB, they do provide the reach necessary to attract large audiences for live sports programming. Smaller leagues, like the WNBA on ION or the aforementioned Xfinity series, have certainly seen viewership success with this strategy. It’s something baseball should be open to at the right price.

5. Splitting the rights

There’s certainly a possibility that MLB decides to split up the rights. Perhaps Fox or Warner Bros. Discovery is interested in picking up additional postseason inventory. Maybe Netflix is interested in the Home Run Derby but not a full slate of regular-season games.

In fact, splitting the rights between multiple partners might be the only way the league can come close to the $550 million per year that ESPN was slated to pay over the remainder of its contract. It’s difficult to see any single media company shelling out that much for what amounts to 30-odd regular season games and the Wild Card round.

This is slotted last in the list since it’s a bit of a cop-out answer. But it might be the most likely scenario if Manfred’s primary goal is to recoup the financial windfall of ESPN’s deal.

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• ‘Shrinking Platform’: MLB, ESPN to Split After 35 Years
  
• The End Of An Era: This Will Be The Final Season Of MLB On ESPN As The Network Has Opted Out Of The Final 3 Years Of Their Agreement
  
• Going, Going, Gone: ESPN, MLB Opt-Out Portends Industry Changes
  
• ESPN-MLB split includes radio, streaming
  
• How will ESPN fill its Sunday Night Baseball vacancy?
  
• Scott Boras rips MLB for being a ‘decade behind’ in rights deals

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Sports business analyst Joe Pompliano breaks down ESPN’s decision to opt out of its television deal with Major League Baseball three years early after the 2025 season. Joe analyzes why the two sides decided to part ways after 35 years, what MLB will look for in a new broadcast partner, how the move affects ESPN’s business, and offers up a potential bidder for MLB’s newly available media rights package. Enjoy!

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MLB commissioner Rob Manfred sent a letter to all 30 owners earlier this week explaining why the league decided to "mutually" part ways with ESPN and opt out of their national television contract.

In the letter, Manfred cited ESPN's lack of baseball coverage in its programming outside of the games as one of the reasons why he agreed to terminate the deal that was set to run through the 2028 season. However, CNN Sports' Kyle Feldscher reported that the breakup perhaps wasn't completely mutual.

"A source with knowledge of ESPN’s approach to the negotiations disputed the idea that the split was mutual," Feldscher reported. "The source told CNN that ESPN opted out of the contract and was surprised by commissioner Rob Manfred’s note to MLB owners that the league and network had mutually agreed to end their relationship.

"The source noted that ESPN had an opt-out clause in the contract and decided to exercise it on Thursday."

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Why the ESPN-MLB Deal Blew Up. - Puck

Puck’s Media Correspondent, Dylan Byers, wrote about MLB and ESPN parting ways at the end of the 2025 season after the sports network refused to re-up their current diluted deal, while Rob Manfred is trying to save face, scrambling to find a new home for America’s pastime.

Excerpt below:

“This week, in what may be remembered as another pivotal regression in Major League Baseball’s retreat from the zeitgeist, ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro told the league that his network would be opting out of its annual $570 million contract at the end of this season. Before ESPN’s letter could even be FedExed to MLB headquarters in Midtown, commissioner Rob Manfred was trying to get ahead of the news and put his own spin on the ball. ‘We do not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform,’ Manfred wrote in a memo to his owners that soon somehow made its way into the digital pages of The Athletic—thereby likely putting the final kiss-off on a relationship that has existed for three and a half decades.

Manfred, a former labor lawyer who has been navigating the balkanized sports media landscape, wasn’t quite done. In the extraordinarily chummy and relationships-based world of sports media, he seemed intent on delivering the message that his league didn’t need Disney’s money and that, despite the cratering of the regional sports network industry, he had plenty of options. ‘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,’ the league said in a statement.

This framing was a source of great amusement for executives at both ESPN and rival media organizations—including current and possible future league partners—all of whom knew that it wasn’t quite so mutual. The seeds of the MLB-ESPN contretemps will be familiar to the readership of my partner John Ourand, who has been reporting on all this dialectic for years, but if not, a quick refresher… Baseball, a game popularized by radio and monetized through its tonnage, has been losing some of its media cachet for years amid the growth of the NFL, increase in televised college sports, ascent of the NBA, and proliferation of niche sports. To wit: A decade-plus ago, Manfred and Pitaro negotiated a $750 million a year, eight-year package that ran through 2021. In 2021, of course, they re-upped into the current $570 million per annum deal. (Yes, it’s $570 million, not $550 million).

But then Manfred went and reset the market by striking substantially cheaper add-on deals, like licensing a package of Friday night games to Apple TV+ for $85 million, in 2022, and Sunday morning games to Roku for $10 million, in 2024. These may have been delightful incremental revenue plays, but they backfired. As The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand noted, the Roku deal is only netting each team $300,000, ‘which is less than half the minimum rookie salary of $760,000 for one player.’ More importantly, measured against those deals, ESPN’s package—which includes Sunday Night Baseball, the wild card playoffs, and the Home Run Derby—seemed overpriced…”

You can explore the full piece here for deeper insight.

MLB and ESPN are parting ways after being broadcasting partners since 1990. The time is right to turn the page, but the role that ESPN played in our consumption of baseball was seismic.

• ESPN reportedly open to negotiating new MLB deal; MLB looking for new partners
  
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• ESPN and MLB breakup reportedly wasn’t so ‘mutual’
  
• MLB, ESPN mutually opt out of broadcast deal, with league citing decrease in studio show coverage
  
• Why the MLB-ESPN standoff is really about local TV
  
• Sports media wax nostalgic about MLB-ESPN media rights announcement
  
• Monday musings: MLB-ESPN bridges burned? Plus: Four Nations and more

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The timeline of MLB and ESPN’s long, slow breakup

While the MLB-ESPN divorce was a stunning moment with the opt-out of the current rights deal, it was years in the making.

By Matt Yoder on 02/27/2025

ESPN and Major League Baseball stunned the sports media world when they both announced an opt-out of their current rights deal after the season that was scheduled to end in 2028.

Although there were rumors and reports that an opt-out may be coming, the reality of baseball no longer airing on ESPN is a shock to anyone who has watched the network over the last 30-plus years. But as ESPN changed and the sports media world changed with it, so did the standing and influence of baseball on the network.

Given the statements released by the parties involved, there’s definitely some hard feelings at play from the MLB side specifically as they feel they were slowly pushed aside by the WorldWide Leader. And as a look at the timeline of the declining relationship shows, it’s a fairly accurate assessment. For the last decade or more, MLB has seen its standing slowly decline as flashier topics and more explosive debates ruled the day. And in the end, the two sides drifted further apart than what was reconcilable in their current television contract.

Early 2010s: Declining influence vs NFL, NBA

If you turn on ESPN at any point in the day, you have about a 90% chance of seeing two sports discussed – football or basketball. Specifically, ESPN spends much of its time talking about the NFL and NBA with college football also getting a ton of airplay in the fall.

This didn’t happen overnight, but gradually as takes began to rule the day and highlights were de-emphasized, the 24/7 news cycles of the NFL and NBA began to dominate the daily sports conversation. For the NFL, it was only natural given the sport has supplanted baseball as the national pastime. For the NBA, the off-court drama following the league’s superstars has seen a constant church going all the way back to The Decision in 2010. And perhaps that moment when LeBron James took his talents to South Beach was a turning point in the daily sports conversation.

For whatever reason, baseball hasn’t been able to match the popularity of the NFL or the interest in the NBA to warrant regular coverage around the clock at ESPN. And as it faded further from the spotlight, its presence became less significant.

Late 2010s: End of Baseball Tonight

For years, it was impossible to think of ESPN without Baseball Tonight. The program aired nightly on ESPN beginning in 1990 until coming to an end in 2017 after a run of layoffs at the network. Those layoffs hit Bristol’s baseball coverage particularly hard. The network let go of analysts Dallas Braden, Doug Glanville, Raul Ibanez, Jim Bowden, and Jayson Stark. For a time, MLB Network’s Intentional Talk was even syndicated on ESPN to try to help fill the gap, but that did not last long.

Baseball Tonight was an institution every night over the course of the season with a star studded panel that showed live look-ins and highlights from games. But as highlights went the way of the dodo, so too did ESPN’s focus on the sport. When there are 162 games during the season what happens on the field usually takes precedence over debates and narratives. It’s easy for Stephen A. Smith to rant about Jerry Jones and LeBron James, it’s less easy to rant about why a pitching change shouldn’t have happened in the top of the 8th inning during an August Padres-Dodgers game.

Ironically, current SportsCenter anchor Gary Striewski gave a social media tour of the old Baseball Tonight studio that currently sits abandoned in Bristol like ancient temple ruins as a shrine to what once was the network’s MLB coverage.

Even though Baseball Tonight has continued to air alongside Sunday Night Baseball in recent years, it was never the same as when it was in its heyday.

What if: ESPN’s RSN opportunity thwarted by DOJ

One of the larger components for the transformative $71 billion Disney acquisition of the majority of Fox’s assets (initially announced as closer to $60 billion before a Comcast bid upped the price) were the 22 local RSNs included in the deal. In fact, Disney valued those 22 RSNs as nearly a third of the total value of the deal at over $20 billion.

Had the deal gone through, ESPN, via these rebranded RSNs, would essentially have had broadcast rights to the majority of all MLB, NHL, and NBA games with a much wider presence thanks to these local channels and rights.

It was that stranglehold across those sports that ended up nixing the deal as half a year later the Department of Justice announced that the deal could only go through if Disney sold the RSNs to another company. Less than a year later, Disney offloaded the RSNs to Sinclair in a deal that only returned $10 billion of the over $20 billion they agreed to pay a little more than a year before.

With RSNs in the midst of an ongoing collapse, many believe the DOJ’s decision is one of the biggest what if moments in all of sports media and one that would have had major implications for both ESPN and Major League Baseball.

In an alternate timeline, ESPN would have had the rights for a little over half of all MLB games, which would have likely springboarded and accelerated their streaming strategy. Perhaps Baseball Tonight would have found more stable footing or syndication on channels and platforms that collectively had millions of viewers that were already watching baseball. There is no doubt that baseball would have become a much more significant focus of ESPN’s overall content as well as business strategy had the deal gone through.

Early 2020s: Bare bones baseball

Instead, the writing might have been the wall for the ESPN-MLB relationship when the two sides announced their new broadcast deal in 2021. The agreement, which was supposed to run until 2028 before the opt-out went into effect, saw a vastly reduced presence for baseball games on the network.

ESPN went from televising 90 games per year all the way down to 30 per season at $550 million in rights fees annually. While ESPN did pick up some playoff games, they dumped mid-week national baseball coverage, which would have at least been an outlet and a bridge for continuing coverage throughout the season. With baseball relegated to Sunday Night Baseball, the sport became much more isolated on WorldWide Leader airwaves.

The opt-out comes with the reality that Sunday Night Baseball is coming off of a season where it scored its best ratings as a franchise since 2019. It should be especially troubling to the sport that even with baseball being in a good moment, ESPN felt its deal was no longer good value in light of some of the smaller, friendlier deals the league has signed elsewhere.

And as far as MLB’s presence on ESPN airwaves? It hit rock bottom in this time period when the network went an entire day of studio shows without even talking about the Wild Card playoff games it was airing that night. It’s hard to blame Rob Manfred when he noted in a statement about pulling the plug on the television deal, “Furthermore, we have not been pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms over the past several years outside of the actual live game coverage.”

Mid 2020s: ESPN playing MoneyBall?

In saying goodbye to the national pastime, ESPN is making a bold but ruthless calculation. It’s simply better off without it. ESPN has found alternatives like TGL that are still pulling in decent numbers without paying a huge rights fee. And consider that ESPN is paying $90 million in annual rights fees for F1 races that are pulling comparable numbers to MLB at a fraction of the cost (1.5 million vs 1.1 million average viewers). And ESPN has decided that even the F1 contract is not value for money anymore.

Instead, ESPN is going boom or bust with sports rights. While they lean on better valued deals like TGL, the NCAA, and the WNBA to invest airtime in, they are also splashing huge amounts of cash at major products that they view as untouchable. These include Monday Night Football, the expanded College Football Playoff, and the NBA. ESPN has re-upped or expanded rights on all of these in recent years. And when it comes to what the network covers on a daily basis, it makes total sense.

Unfortunately for MLB, ESPN has found that those calculations do not include baseball. And it might not for some time. As for what comes next, ESPN has shown that it has the capacity to freeze out sports after losing the rights for them. So whatever happens in the future and wherever MLB finally lands, it may make the last few years look like their golden age in Bristol.

In another episode of The Sporting Class with David Samson, John Skipper and Pablo Torre, we examine Major League Baseball's opt-out from its ESPN contract: Are we underestimating baseball's fundamental value? Why doesn't MLB have bigger stars? And why would a network sign a broadcast-rights deal in the first place, if you can just put crap on TV?

• Inside the Manfred-Pitaro Divorce
  
• Braves chairman says ‘dry powder’ available for payroll; calls MLB-ESPN break-up a ‘non-event’
  
• Boog Sciambi reveals MLB requested opt-out that ESPN just used on TV deal: ‘Major mistake’
  
• Could ESPN and MLB still have a broadcast future together?
  
• CNBC Sport: MLB may need to rethink rights packaging after ESPN opts out
  
• MLB and ESPN Split Reveals What's On Deck Amid TV's Streaming Shift
  
• What led to ESPN and MLB’s messy breakup
  
• David Samson on potential new ESPN-MLB deal: ‘Not going to happen’
  
• What led to the MLB-ESPN divorce?
  
• MLB’s Wandering Eye Sinks Relationship with ESPN
  
• 6 Reasons MLS Should Court ESPN (Again) After Its Divorce From MLB
  
• Jim Souhan: Leaving ESPN is a bad idea for Major League Baseball

[TMC]

ESPN wanted to slash MLB payments by over $300m, per report

The network wanted to cut its annual rights payment from $550 million to $200 million.

Why shifting sports media landscape made MLB-ESPN opt-out possible

The MLB-ESPN opt-out is a sign of the changing state of play in sports media where all sides are constantly re-evaluating deals.

MLB reportedly talking to Netflix, Amazon, NBC after ESPN opt-out

According to Puck's John Ourand, MLB is already in discussions with several networks and streaming platforms after the ESPN opt-out.