MLB and ESPN Break Up Their Baseball Team Over Fees and Coverage

After tipping their pitches considerably in recent years, Major League Baseball and ESPN announced Thursday that they have “mutually agreed” to end their broadcast rights deal with three years left to go.

While MLB and the sports network have been paired in one form or another since 1990, their current deal was supposed to extend seven years into 2028 and pay the league $550 million a year. It will now end after the 2025 season after both sides faced a March 1 deadline to opt out of the contract.

“We are grateful for our longstanding relationship with Major League Baseball and proud of how ESPN’s coverage super-serves fans,” ESPN said in a statement. “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.”

The network noted that it remains open to “exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.”

Veteran baseball marketer Uzma Rawn Dowler has been named MLB

How we got here

ESPN apparently balked at continuing its current agreement, especially over MLB’s other less lucrative deals. More recent MLB rights deals have Apple shelling out $85 million for Friday night games since 2022, and Roku pays $10 million a year for Sunday afternoon games. But the league took a bat to that argument.

“Given the strength of our product, we do not believe a reduction in fees is warranted,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday in a memo reported by The Athletic.