Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred is laying the groundwork for a transformative shift in how the league handles its broadcast rights, suggesting the current model could be overhauled by the time new rights deals are negotiated in 2028.
Speaking candidly this week about the league’s media future coming potentially in 2028 with CNBC’s Alex Sherman, Manfred acknowledged the growing instability of local television deals and emphasized the need for a more streamlined and fan-friendly approach to how games are delivered.
“The media environment has changed,” Manfred said. “Of all the challenges, the most serious is local broadcasting. Most of the new entrants, the competitors in the media market, are interested in at least national, if not international, rights. Our goal would be to accumulate all of our rights, national and local. Go to the table and develop in concert with the potential buyers, packages that are most valuable to them.”
The commissioner outlined a hypothetical future in which MLB would consolidate both national and local rights under a single umbrella, allowing the league to repackage and sell media rights in a way that creates broader reach and value. In essence, the goal is to simplify how fans access games and eliminate the long-standing blackout issues that have plagued the sport for decades.
“There’s a lot of places you have to go right now if you’re a fan,” Manfred explained. “We should create a more fan friendly environment, where people understand better where the games are… Absolutely have to end the blackouts that have plagued us for a really long time.”
Central to making this model work is getting team owners on board, especially those in larger markets who currently benefit from more lucrative local TV arrangements. But Manfred hinted that the league is already considering mechanisms to balance those interests — including changes to revenue sharing that could appeal to both large and small market teams.
“If you centralize your media and the revenue from those media streams are shared 1/30, there’s much less need for the kind of local revenue sharing system that we have today,” he said. “For the large markets whose payments into that system escalate as disparity grows. That’s very appealing. It’s also very appealing from an incentive perspective, because you get rid of what is essentially a 48% marginal tax rate.”
In the short term, MLB is still making key broadcast decisions. Manfred confirmed that NBC, Apple, and ESPN are the three bidders for the league’s “Sunday Night Baseball” package, which ESPN and MLB mutually opted out of earlier this year. He added that a decision is expected within the month and left open the possibility of the rights being split between two outlets.
While no formal decisions have been made on the larger 2028 framework, the tone and detail of Manfred’s comments suggest MLB is seriously exploring a centralized broadcast future. With RSNs crumbling and digital platforms hungry for content, the timing may be right for the league to take greater control of how its product is distributed.
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