NBC Sports is gearing up to embark on the first year of an 11-year media rights deal that it signed with the NBA and WNBA beginning this year. With the flagship Sunday Night Football agreement already in place with the network for several more years, there are questions surrounding whether NBC would be interested in working a deal with Major League Baseball for the rights to broadcast Sunday Night Baseball.
Earlier this year, ESPN and MLB announced a mutual end to their broadcasting rights agreement, which included Sunday Night Baseball, the MLB Wild Card series, and the MLB Home Run Derby. Subsequently, NBC Sports president Rick Cordella joined CNBC’s Alex Sherman and discussed how the network is looking at potentially doing business with Major League Baseball.
“I think with any league that brings their product to market, we have a deck on it,” said Cordella. “We do analysis on it. We look at through those various things I mentioned at the very top about how much value we can drive off Peacock, linear, distribution, and advertising. Does that economic reality make sense with what another group is asking for in return? Sometimes there’s a match and sometimes there’s not. With baseball or any other sport that’s out there, we’ll see.”
Furthermore, earlier this year, NBC Sports president of acquisitions & partnerships Jon Miller revealed at the SportsPro conference in New York City that the network was exploring a bid with Major League Baseball. He noted that NBC had rights agreements with MLB twice before and pointed out that it is not uncommon for leagues to return back to the network.
While Cordella said he had no new news about the discussions, he was asked by Sherman if he felt there were any progressions in the conversations.
“We talked to everyone,” said Cordella. “There’s a few different deals that are up at this time, including MLB. We look at all of them and we’ll make an assessment and a decision.”
Moreover, Cordella then agreed with Sherman’s assumption that having a Sunday night baseball package to go along with an NBA and NFL package would make sense for the network, saying that “there would be some symmetry to that.”
Finally, the current agreement between ESPN and MLB, which ends following the conclusion of the World Series, is arranged where ESPN pays out $550 million dollars a season.
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