Concurrent with the early stages of spring training, ESPN and Major League Baseball came to a mutual agreement to part ways following the upcoming 2025 MLB season. The culmination of the 35-year partnership has resulted in MLB shopping the rights around the market, which includes Sunday Night Baseball, the T-Mobile Home Run Derby and Wild Card Round of the MLB Postseason. Comcast-owned NBCUniversal has reportedly submitted an offer to the league to take over the package of regular-season and postseason contests ESPN will no longer be airing after this season, according to a report by Joe Flint and Jared Diamond of The Wall Street Journal.
The report indicates that the NBC offer was made earlier in the month but that the two sides had been talking for several weeks prior. Manfred himself is said to have discussed a deal with Brian Roberts, the chief executive officer of Comcast Corporation. It would also mark another key rights acquisition following the acquisition of a package of National Basketball Association games that will officially make its debut in the fall.
The deal offered to MLB from NBC is said to be worth “significantly less than what ESPN pays,” which is reportedly $550 million per season, partially because the company is not looking to license the international and radio rights from the league, nor is it seeking rights to highlight clips.
If the two sides were to reach a deal, NBC would be airing Sunday Night Baseball games, marking the first network change for the property since 1990. Games would also appear on the Peacock streaming service, including when NBC is carrying other sports on its broadcast networks. In a separate transaction, the NBCUniversal spin company Versant reportedly has interest in potentially acquiring a baseball package as well. Versant, however, is not part of the discussions between NBC and Major League Baseball.
NBC formerly aired MLB games for a stretch of 42 years ending in 1989, which included the Game of the Week franchise. Both NBC and ABC opted to drop MLB game broadcasts at the conclusion of the 1995 season after two years televising select games on The Baseball Network joint venture. MLB games were last televised on NBCUniversal properties in 2023 under a multiyear deal in which Sunday morning games were broadcast exclusively on Peacock. Upon the expiration of the deal, MLB reached an agreement with Roku, which continues to present Sunday Leadoff games throughout the regular season.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred has expressed a desire for the league to bring local media rights for teams under its control, attempting to create more lucrative media rights deals containing national games as well. National contracts with Fox Corporation and Warner Bros. Discovery are said to expire at the end of the 2028 season, which would allow the league to sell the local rights as a streaming package. Viewers would then have the ability to purchase and view games without a cable subscription and sans blackouts.
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