Time is continuing to tick for Major League Baseball and Commissioner Rob Manfred when it comes to who will take on a new national media rights agreement beginning next season. Earlier this year, ESPN and MLB mutually agreed to part ways with their national broadcasting rights agreement, which had three years remaining on the deal. As a result, both ESPN began seeking a new arrangement with MLB, and MLB was tasked with finding a new partner to house elements of the baseball calendar, including Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby, and the Wild Card round broadcasts—along with all national play-by-play rights currently housed on ESPN Radio.
Speaking at a news conference during the owners meetings on Wednesday, Manfred stated that the goal is to have a new national rights agreement in place by the MLB All-Star Game next month in Atlanta.
“I’m hopeful that in the next few weeks, prior to the All-Star Game, we get something done,” Manfred said. “When you’re having three different sets of conversations, it’s a lot. Each set of conversations involves a different group of content. We’re talking to three people about different packages.”
Meanwhile, several reports have indicated that MLB is in discussions with NBC to potentially take on the Sunday Night Baseball package, while Apple TV+ is reportedly looking to expand on its Friday Night Baseball package. Although Manfred did not confirm which parties the league is negotiating with, indications are that the package ESPN held for over thirty years will be broken up into shorter deals with multiple networks, as other national deals with MLB are set to expire in 2028.
“We agreed to the opt-out as a set of compromises that got us to the deal we had. We liked the deal we had,” Manfred said of ESPN. “Do I wish I wasn’t in a position to sell three years so we can line our rights up in 2028? The answer to that is yes.”
Previously, when the mutual opt-out was announced, Manfred said that ESPN’s reasoning for requesting to reduce its $550 million-per-year broadcast rights fee was “inapt,” citing that the network has a fully exclusive window, whereas Apple and Roku compete with other games on different networks. Additionally, Manfred emphasized ESPN’s exclusivity with marquee events such as the Home Run Derby and Wild Card playoffs—privileges that streaming platforms currently do not enjoy.
According to a letter obtained by The Athletic in February, Commissioner Manfred stated that the league does “not believe Pay TV, ESPN’s primary distribution platform, is the future of video distribution or the best platform for our content.” He pointed to ESPN’s declining subscriber numbers and explained that MLB did not feel it would benefit the league “to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform.”
Now, with more than two months of the 2025 season completed, MLB announced earlier this week that national broadcasts on FOX, ESPN, and TBS have all posted double-digit percentage gains in average viewership compared to last year. Notably, Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN has generated its most-watched season in eight years, dating back to 2017, according to Nielsen. The franchise is averaging 1,719,000 viewers—up 16 percent from 2024—and is also up six percent from last year in the P18–49 demographic.
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