Major League Baseball (MLB) is reportedly on the verge of inking new broadcast deals for domestic rights with NBCUniversal, Netflix and ESPN.
People close to the deal told the Wall Street Journal NBCUniversal is close to agreeing a three-year broadcast deal with MLB worth $200m per-year. This would see NBC broadcast Sunday night games when it does not broadcast NFL and NBA Sunday night games.
MLB games would also be made available on NBC’s streaming platform Peacock, while NBC Universal was able to acquire rights to select postseason games.
Netflix are also close to agreeing a broadcast deal with the MLB to host the Home Run Derby for the next three years in an agreement worth a reported $35m per-year.
The Home Run Derby, the annual home run hitting competition held during MLB All-Star Weekend every July, falls in line with Netflix’s live sports content strategy of holding one-off sporting events in a bid to avoid being tied down to long-term broadcast rights contracts.
ESPN at the centre of new deal
In March 2025, ESPN announced it would be exercising its opt-out clause of its $550m per-year deal with the MLB at the end of this year.
The deal was due to expire in 2028. However, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro believed the valuation of the deal had declined and was more willing to renegotiate the deal at a reduced fee of $200m per-year.
This drew the ire of MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, who criticised ESPN for its “minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms over the past several years outside of the actual live game coverage”.
Under the original deal penned between MLB and ESPNt, the network has the rights to broadcast up to 30 live MLB regular season games per season. ESPN also currently holds the rights for the Wild Card playoff round games and the Home Run Derby.
Now, however, ESPN is proposing to acquire local out-of-market games from MLB franchises that broadcast on MLB.TV, which is another key element to the network’s current strategy for its new direct-to-consumer streaming service.
With the potential addition of MLB.TV on ESPN’s new streaming service, this could see archived MLB footage land on the platform, as well as potential in-market and national games.
ESPN has been placing great significance on its new streaming service by acquiring sports leagues’ direct-to-consumer services and integrating them into its own platform.
The most high-profile example came when ESPN acquired the NFL Media, enabling it to feature the NFL Network and NFL RedZone, while the NFL received a 10% ownership stake in ESPN in return.
