Nothing is official yet, but MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday that the league has agreements in principle on the new rights deals it has been negotiating for much of the year.
Major League Baseball has reached agreements in principle with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix on new media rights deals that would in one form or another replace ESPN’s expiring contract, commissioner Rob Manfred said at the Front Office Sports “Tuned In” conference Tuesday. The deals are not final and there are still “issues that need to be resolved,” Manfred said.
Manfred confirmed when asked that the details reported about the deals are correct, specifically that Netflix would air the Home Run Derby and that NBCU would air “Sunday Night Baseball” and Wild Card playoff games. Manfred: “We feel like ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ on broadcast television is important. We’ve worked really hard to keep ESPN in as a partner. And we think starting with Netflix is a really exciting opportunity for us.”
When asked if MLB will come out ahead on reach and revenue compared to where it would have been had ESPN not opted out, Manfred said yes only to the former. He indicated that the short-term nature of the deals, which are set to expire with the rest of MLB’s media rights in 2028, limited the league’s ability to recoup revenue. “When you’re in a shorter term deal like that, it impacts the economics that are going to be available to you. Broadcasters like longer deals.”
According to prior reporting, the current ESPN package that is worth $550 million/year — “Sunday Night Baseball,” Wild Card playoff games and the Home Run Derby — will be worth just $235-250 million/year. NBCU would pay $200 million/year, per multiple reports, while Netflix would pay $35 million per The Wall Street Journal or $50 million per CNBC.
But the new ESPN package would go for $550 million/year. That deal would consist of rights that have not previously been awarded, including MLB.tv and local rights to five clubs. Alex Sherman of CNBC reported in August that MLB.tv alone would account for $450 million of that rights fee. Combined, MLB would come out ahead, but at the cost of additional rights that may well have been worth more had they been sold in prior deals.
For MLB, this year’s negotiations have been somewhat of a distraction from the looming expiration of all of its national media rights contracts in 2028. Manfred said Tuesday that having to deal with mid-cycle negotiations was not ideal — reiterating a point he made earlier in the year — but added there was a “side benefit” from getting to the market earlier. “You’re talking about selling your three years, but also it’s close enough that you start talking to people about what 2028 could look like. And I think that was a sort of silver lining in that cloud.”
MLB is poised to enter those 2028 negotiations with two new incumbents in NBCU and Netflix, plus the returning Fox Sports, TNT Sports and ESPN. Manfred, who has long pointed to 2028 as an opportunity to reshape MLB’s media presence, said that he would expect more national games in the 2028 deal and a centralized option for local media rights. “For me, the ideal would be, for example, having either an MLB Network-based or a digitally-based kind of fall back where you always know if it’s not a national game, I’m going to be able to find it one of these two places.”
Manfred said he expects that rights to all 30 clubs will be available to include in a potential centralized option in 2028. That would mean teams like the Yankees, who own their own RSN, would have to be willing to in some way cede full control of their local rights. Manfred did not say exactly how MLB would get owners to go along with such a plan. “The best I can do for you on that right now is to say we’re not going to centralize local media as a standalone deal. There will have to be other gives and takes, that make sense for all the clubs.”
