Months After ESPN Opt-Out, MLB May Increase Its National TV Exposure
MLB's national relevance felt like it was shrinking. ESPN was looking to cut costs on some of its larger properties.
What a difference six months makes, though.
On Tuesday, Yahoo Sports' Kendall Baker reported that MLB was close to finalizing the outstanding portions of its media rights agreement for the 2026-28 seasons. The highlights, via Baker:
What It Means For MLB
It's hard to fully evaluate these deals just yet, if only because we don't have the financial details. But it seems highly likely that NBCUniversal will pay MLB something near to what it was getting from ESPN ($550 million per year) and Apple ($85 million per) under the previous arrangements.
Netflix's portion would also add to that total, as would ESPN, buying MLB.TV. Overall, MLB is highly likely to make more money from this reworked deal compared to the existing ones.
Even if not, though, the move is still a win for baseball.
It trades limited streaming reach on Apple TV+ for potential broadcast reach on NBC (assuming it's not a Peacock-only window). And then swaps cable for broadcast's larger audiences on Sunday nights. The Home Run Derby also gets a potential upgrade that puts it in front of a younger audience on Netflix.
Among MLB's previous gripes with ESPN was that it was 'not pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB received on ESPN platforms' (via a memo from commissioner Rob Manfred). Appearing on NBC would potentially solve those issues.
NBC's Sports Resurgence
NBC shuttered NBC Sports Network at the end of 2021 as it was losing NHL rights and consolidating programming and leveraging Peacock. Yet since then, it's made aggressive moves to expand its sports footprint on TV.
Over the last few years, NBCU has acquired broadcast rights for the Big Ten Conference, NBA and WNBA, and now potentially MLB as well. The company now has so many tentpole sports properties that it is considering launching a cable sports network again (according to reporting from The Wall Street Journal).
A foothold with MLB on Sunday nights would also give NBC dominion over that night of the week year-round. Sunday Night Football would hand off to Sunday Night Basketball, which would give way to Sunday Night Baseball. Given what NBC has already managed while turning SNF into the NFL's biggest weekly showcase, it's easy to be optimistic about it doing the same for the NBA and MLB, elevating those matchups as well.
ESPN's Everything App Gets Even Bigger
ESPN manages to have its cake and eat it here, shedding the pricey national TV deal with MLB while picking up what could be a lucrative out-of-market product in MLB.TV.
Leading up to the launch of ESPN's new standalone streaming app, the company has been busy making the offering unavoidable for sports fans. In recent months, ESPN has added WWE events to its roster and acquired NFL Media properties like NFL Network and NFL RedZone (while also giving up 10% of the company to the NFL).
By tacking out-of-market MLB games onto the service much in the way it has already done with various niche and college sports rights plus the former NHL.TV out-of-market games, ESPN very much plans to win over fans with the sheer volume of content available within this streaming app.
Even more notable: Acquiring these out-of-market games allows ESPN to completely circumvent the need for a national media rights deal with MLB. If there's an interesting matchup one night, it can simply utilize the app's interface to give it the premium treatment and direct audiences there.
MLB rights, much like the NHL rights it already has, also give ESPN an even longer list of recognizable logos for viewers to see while scrolling through the app. In an environment where all consumer expenses are being scrutinized, the idea that you'll get most MLB and NHL games on top of main ESPN feeds – even if you don't need them all – is an appealing sales proposition.
Regardless of the financials involved, though, all sides seem to score a big win here. Assuming the sport doesn't implode when the collective bargaining agreement expires at the end of 2026, of course.
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Yes, the SEC's decision may ease and make more productive conversations with Big Ten officials over a future format, but it doesn't mean Big Ten leaders will jump to agree with the proposed '5+11' format that the SEC, ACC and Big 12 have openly supported. In fact, on Thursday, one Big Ten official told Yahoo Sports that while the SEC's move is a positive step, the league has more concerns, most notably related to the CFP selection committee's criteria of choosing what would be 11 at-large playoff teams. Remember, according to an agreement that all the FBS conferences signed last year, the Big Ten and SEC hold authority over future CFP formats as long as they have 'meaningful' conversation with the ACC and Big 12. The disagreement between the two conferences lingers. One wants more at-large selections and another wants more automatic qualifiers. The Big Ten proposed 16 and even 28-team formats that grant an unequal number of AQs to specific leagues, as many as four to each the SEC and Big Ten in a 16-team model circulated this past season and seven AQs for the two leagues in a model that emerged last week. The ACC and Big 12, along with the SEC, have thrown their collective weight behind the 5+11 model, and so have the Group of Six conferences plus Notre Dame. It's put the Big Ten on an island and has resulted in an impasse in CFP format negotiations. The SEC's desire for a 5+11 format 'remains' after the move to a nine-game conference schedule, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey told Paul Finebaum on his show on Thursday. 'There are other ideas that have been talked about. We haven't taken positions on those. Lot of work to be done,' he said. The most recent 'other' idea is a 24 or 28-team format circulated last week by Big Ten leaders. While some SEC school executives are interested in exploring such a model, many others — especially the league's room of presidents — are turned off by such a large postseason field, to the point that one quipped recently, 'It's a non-starter.' Is the SEC's move to nine games a compromise to the Big Ten to get that conference on board with the 5+11 model? After all, Big Ten administrators and coaches have made it clear that they were against a move to a format with such a big at-large pool if the SEC remained at eight conference games. They believe the league would have an advantage in landing those at-large spots (they were probably right on that thinking, by the way). But it may take weeks or months for the Big Ten to gather enough support to push aside its administrators and coaches' desire to have a more NFL-like field with automatic qualifiers. However, the SEC's move to nine wasn't only for CFP reasons, of course. Money is at play here. As previously reported, the schools are in line to receive additional revenue from ESPN to play an extra conference game, as much as $5 million a school annually. At the most financially stressful time in college sports, any new money is welcomed. There's something else, too. The shift to nine provides the league with the ability to sell tickets to another SEC game, to include such a game in season ticket packages and to generate more sponsorship and advertising dollars for that game. They'll play one another more too. The nine-game schedule will follow a '3-6' model, where each school plays three permanent opponents and six rotating each year, assuring each of the 16 schools play the other at least once in a two-year span. By the way, the SEC, at least years ago when this '3-6' model was selected, planned to choose each school's permanent opponents based on three considerations: (1) primary and secondary rivalries; (2) geography; and (3) equity. How do you solve the equity consideration? It's pretty simple actually: The SEC's original plan was to use the last 10 years of win-loss records to create tiers and then pair schools that way. But the most important component, probably, is historic rivalries. Anyway, back to the impact nationally. Thursday's decision, for many, came as a surprise. 'That came out of nowhere,' said one SEC leader. 'I wonder what changed?' pondered another. Momentum grew in the spring for a nine-game schedule, coinciding with the Big Ten and SEC's discussion over the '4-4-2-2-1' CFP format that leaned heavily on automatic qualifiers. However, SEC coaches in May rejected the format, and many believed that the league would likely remain at eight conference games. What changed this week? The CFP announced an adjustment to its selection committee criteria in choosing at-large teams, more heavily weighing games against top programs. Was it enough to tip the scales among a split room of athletic directors debating, for four years, between eight and nine games? Perhaps. Either way, they got there. And now the question lingers: Will the Big Ten come around on the 16-team format that everyone else wants?
