MLB commissioner Rob Manfred acknowledged for the first time that NBC, Apple and incumbent ESPN are the contenders for the expiring ESPN rights package.
In an interview with CNBC published Thursday, Manfred agreed when asked by reporter Alex Sherman if it would be “fair to say” ESPN, Apple and NBC have submitted a bid for the expiring ESPN rights package — marking the first time he has publicly acknowledged that those are the three contenders. Manfred revealed that he had a “great week of meetings” and feels that the league needs to wrap up the process, which has included multiple bidders.
“I think the most complicated part of it right now is if somebody takes all of it or we end up doing a couple of deals,” Manfred said, “but I am confident we’re going to make a deal that will be good for our fans.”
At the moment, MLB broadcasts on ESPN will cease after the 2025 season, marking the conclusion of a 35-year partnership. It had been previously reported that ESPN was open to a new deal with MLB containing a diminished media rights fee, and company chairman Jimmy Pitaro expressed a willingness to be part of the solution at the local level.
“I think our goals would be to have more national exposure, increase our reach,” Manfred said. “In addition, we think we have a cluttered environment right now. There’s a lot of places you have to go if you’re a fan of a particular team, and we think that we should strive to create a more fan-friendly environment. People understand better where the games are — kind of like a default, ‘My game is always here,’ and absolutely have to end the blackouts that have plagued us for a really long time.”
Starting with the Ch. 11 bankruptcy of then-Diamond Sports Group, Major League Baseball has been producing and disseminating local broadcasts for select teams. For the 2025 season, the league is taking on such a role for five teams and also providing concomitant streaming options. Manfred revealed that it is possible these teams “could be a piece of what happens going forward,” although he did not confirm whether or not they could be included a deal for the existing ESPN package of games.
During an interview on “The Pat McAfee Show” earlier in the week, Manfred discussed the need to streamline the offering and eliminate its presence in “the blackout business.” In fact, he cited a purported windfall of subscriptions related to San Diego Padres local broadcasts shortly after MLB assumed control.
“There were 20,000 people in San Diego [who] wanted to watch games, were willing to pay for it, and we were telling them, ‘Sorry, can’t help you,'” Manfred articulated. “And [there] are too many places right now. We’ve experimented — Apple’s been a great experiment — but we do have a lot of fragmentation. We need to get into a more streamlined model where a fan knows, ‘I want to see my game tonight.'”
While the league reportedly garners over $1.8 billion from its national media rights partners (ESPN, FOX Sports, TNT Sports, Apple, Roku), the local level presents a nonlinear equation. For example, the Los Angeles Dodgers organization reportedly receives $334 million per year for its local media rights under a 25-year agreement signed with then-Time Warner Cable. With a declining pay TV penetration rate and ambiguous future surrounding the RSN business, most teams have introduced direct-to-consumer and other digital capabilities.
Yet the league aspires to centralize its media rights strategy in the future, providing a comprehensive oeuvre on which companies can bid and ultimately garner a higher price. At the same time, the league is aiming to eliminate blackouts, which have restricted visibility and accessibility. Manfred explained that there would be a larger set of changes that could incentivize large-market teams to relinquish control of their broadcast rights.
“If in fact you centralize your media and the revenue from those media streams are shared 1/30th, there’s much less need for the kind of local revenue sharing system that we have today, and for the large markets whose payments into that system escalate as disparity grows, that’s very appealing,” Manfred explained. “It’s also very appealing from an incentive perspective because you get rid of what is essentially a 48% marginal tax rate.”
Combined with the paradigm shift towards presenting games on television, the league has also innovated in the digital space. ESPN host Pat McAfee acknowledged that it felt as if MLB did not want to see the internet “become a big baseball place,” referencing cease and desists and a dearth of videos being distributed. Over the last few years, however, he has witnessed change in this area and mentioned how the league recently agreed to a strategic partnership with Jomboy Media.
“MLB.TV was the first over-the-top product,” Manfred said to McAfee. “The problem is we got into this thing where we thought we could drive everything to our platforms, okay? So then when I became commissioner, I came up [on] a different side of the business, some of the people you were referring to came to me and said, ‘We got this wrong. We’re just in the wrong place. We’re trying to drive everybody here. The right strategy is to make sure we are where the people are. You got to go where people are going,’ and that shift has been a really good thing for us.”
