ESPN will apparently have to wait a year before it begins distributing local in-market Major League Baseball games via its app.
In a broader piece about the state of Major League Baseball on local television, Evan Drellich and Katie Woo of The Athletic reported Wednesday that the local in-market streaming rights ESPN acquired as part of its new MLB rights deal are unlikely to be distributed through the ESPN app until the 2027 season. ESPN did not comment on the report, which was highlighted earlier Tuesday by Ben Axelrod of Awful Announcing, but a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed its accuracy.
ESPN will still own those in-market distribution rights for the 2026 season, but the current plan per sources is to distribute them solely through MLB platforms. Nothing has been finalized as the details are still being worked out, but that is the direction in which the situation is heading.
The above applies only to the local in-market rights ESPN acquired, not the MLB.tv digital out-of-market package that was also part of the network’s rights deal. While MLB.tv will also be available via MLB platforms in 2026, it will be distributed through the ESPN app as well.
It had already been known that the local rights and MLB.tv would continue to be distributed through MLB platforms for the 2026 season, but it had been widely assumed that both properties would be available on the ESPN app as well. Instead, ESPN is guaranteed at most two years of carrying the in-market games on its app before its new contract expires in 2028.
The local rights cover teams whose broadcasts are being produced and distributed by Major League Baseball. There are currently six such teams, with the Washington Nationals expected to soon become the seventh. There could be more on the way, as RSN owner Main Street Sports Group is believed to be on the verge of going out of business should it fail to reach a deal to sell a majority stake in itself to DAZN.
ESPN is nearly a full year removed from opting out of its MLB rights deal, kicking off a months-long auction that initially seemed destined to result in its complete exit from MLB. Instead, the company added the local in-market rights, MLB.tv, and a new package of exclusive weeknight national games that kicks in next season. Its previous package that included “Sunday Night Baseball,” the Wild Card playoffs, Opening Day and the Home Run Derby will be split between NBCUniversal and Netflix.
