By: Joshua Anderson
In a significant shift within sports broadcasting, ESPN and Major League Baseball (MLB) have mutually agreed to conclude their national television partnership after the 2025 season. This decision brings an end to a 35-year collaboration that has been bringing Baseball to households for decades.
“We are grateful for our long standing relationship with Major League Baseball and proud of how ESPN’s coverage super-serves fans. In making this decision, we applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN’s industry-leading live events portfolio as we continue to grow our audience across linear, digital and social platforms,” ESPN said in a statement. “As we have been throughout the process, we remain open to exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.”
The issue mainly seems to stem from a disagreement over fees and ESPN stands strong about not paying more for than it has previously. This decision has come from a fiscal standpoint. According to iSpot data, MLB games in 2024 accounted for 2.2% of the total national linear spend on the ESPN flagship, which translates to $58.5 million over the course of the season. While that is not a negligent sum, it is replaceable. The MLB package of last year was 10th in terms of ad sale revenue. Football is now king and baseball just isn’t pulling in the amount that it used too. The price was just too high to continue this partnership.
Going forward ESPN is open to negotiation into bringing MLB back into the program but MLB does have some other options. Other traditional networks with strong sports presence such as NBC Sports or CBS Sports could provide an opportunity for MLB. Amazon Prime could be a good avenue but the price that comes with the program would be quite a difficult feat to get one of the big companies to shell out.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred told ESPN that his team has been “in conversations with several interested parties around these rights over the past several months” and that he expects to have “at least two potential options for consideration over the next few weeks.” so the impact of this loss might come out positive for America’s pastime. Once hailed as the national pastime, baseball is now very much a local phenomenon, as is evident from last year’s attendance figures (the highest since 2017). This breakup certainly does no favors for MLB but it shouldn’t be its doom.
ESPN is looking to replace the program and there are many prospective choices with WNBA looking very promising as the start of Sunday Night Baseball coincides with the heart of March Madness. For the rest of the spring though ESPN has the NHL schedule but if that doesn’t do, the network is a rightsholder of the UFL for the regular and postseason.
