NEW YORK — On the day of their breakup this spring, Major League Baseball flashed some anger toward ESPN. When the broadcaster opted out of the final three years of its national baseball deal, commissioner Rob Manfred criticized the network in a letter to the sport’s owners.
A few months later, a different feeling has cropped up: regret.
MLB is in talks with three different broadcasters over the rights ESPN once held, Manfred said, and he hopes a new 2026-28 deal is done come the All-Star Game in mid-July. But however those negotiations end, MLB is almost certainly going to make less than the estimated $550 million ESPN would have paid annually.
Manfred acknowledged Wednesday evening he would rather not be in the spot he is now.
“Look, we agreed to the opt-out as part of a set of compromises that got us to the deal we had,” Manfred said at MLB headquarters, where the league was hosting owners’ meetings. “We liked the deal we had. You know, looking backwards, do I wish I wasn’t in a position to sell three years, so we can line our rights up to 2028? The answer to that is yes.”
MLB’s other two national TV deals, with FOX and Turner, run through the 2028 season.
ESPN’s former rights include Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby and eight to 12 first-round playoff games. MLB has held talks with NBC, Apple and FOX about various parts of the package.
NBC made an initial offer that was not close to what ESPN was paying, people briefed on the talks who were not authorized to speak publicly said, but NBC offers the opportunity of broad distribution. Apple already has an $85 million deal with MLB for exclusive Friday Night Baseball doubleheaders. Apple and MLB have not disclosed how many viewers watch these games, but drawing eyeballs could be a concern.
“I would overweight reach, because reach is significant to … the larger negotiation we’ll have for the post-’28 period,” Manfred said of his approach to the ESPN rights. “We continue to believe that reach drives our live business, and the combination of those two things, at least for that short period of time, I would definitely overweight reach.”
FOX could emerge as a possibility for the Home Run Derby and a small piece of the overall package.
“Each set of conversations involves a different group of content. They’re not the same,” Manfred said. “It’s not like it’s one package that we’re talking to three people about. We’re talking to three people about different packages.”
The Athletic previously reported MLB is also dangling its out-of-market streaming product, MLB.tv. MLB has never made this package available and it could have broad appeal to places like YouTube, Apple, Amazon or ESPN, among others.
While ESPN remains interested in baseball, the sides have not resumed negotiations since February’s opt-out schism.
“We are not in conversations with them,” ESPN chairperson Jimmy Pitaro said in mid-May.
MLB was the party that pushed for the inclusion of the opt-out ESPN exercised in the first place, ESPN baseball broadcaster Boog Sciambi said publicly after the breakup. MLB declined comment on Wednesday.
MLB could wind up with multiple partners, divvying up the ESPN rights into different packages. NBC, which has Sunday night NFL and NBA programming, has a natural interest in growing its Sunday night offerings year-round.
MLB has a labor negotiation looming with the players after the 2026 season that has the potential to bring an offseason lockout and, if talks do not go well, canceled games in 2027. However, Manfred said fear of a work stoppage has not been an overlay in negotiations for the three years of media rights.
“We’re not committed or telling people there’s going to be a lockout after the end of the ’26 season,” Manfred said. “That all remains to be decided. And we’re just not having those kinds of conversations in the context of media.”
MLB touted its TV ratings in a news release this week, noting gains on ESPN, FOX and TBS. The league did not publicize numbers for Apple’s Friday Night streams, nor for Roku’s Sunday Morning package. Apple is paying the league $85 million per season, while Roku is paying $10 million.
(Photo: David Buono / Icon Sportswire via Associated Press)
