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Major League Baseball announces media rights deals with NBC, Netflix, and ESPN
The three-year deals became official on Wednesday, and will affect how fans watch baseball.
Major League Baseball’s new media rights deals with NBC, Netflix, and ESPN became official Wednesday, with the three-year agreements changing the parameters of watching the sport via television and streaming.
NBC will become the new home of “Sunday Night Baseball,” which had been a staple of ESPN’s baseball package since 1990. With rights deals in place with the NFL and NBA, NBC will now feature a game from a prominent league year-round on Sunday nights.
NBC also is gaining the wild-card playoff round, which had been part of ESPN’s baseball slate. Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, is picking up the Sunday morning streaming package that had belonged to Roku since the 2024 season.
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ESPN will still have approximately 30 national games annually, though the primary days have not been determined. The network will have out-of-market rights for all 30 teams, and in-market rights for six (Mariners, Padres, Diamondbacks, Twins, Guardians, and Rockies) that don’t have independent local rights deals.
The contentious negotiations between MLB and ESPN have been well-documented since ESPN opted out of the remaining three years and $1.65 billion of the previous rights deal in February.
MLB commissioner Rob Manfred dismissed ESPN as having a shrinking platform, and the league claimed ESPN’s decision to opt out was mutual. Negotiations between the sides eventually resumed, with ESPN always being one of MLB’s best options as a rights partner.
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The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand reported Wednesday that ESPN will pay the same amount to MLB in this rights deal ($550 million per year) as the previous one, but with a major concession. MLB is turning over the popular MLB.TV package to ESPN as part of the deal to maintain the rights partnership.
MLB.TV will be available on both the ESPN direct-to-consumer app and the MLB platform initially, but that may just be a trial for ESPN subscribers before it becomes an add-on at a separate cost.
Netflix’s portion of the deal will include Opening Night, the Home Run Derby, and the annual Field of Dreams game.
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