As MLB and ESPN opt out of the remainder of their national TV deal after the 2025 season, it “seems likely the true value” of that deal is “probably a little more than half of what ESPN is currently paying,” according to Dylan Byers of PUCK. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred “made it clear from the outset that he wasn’t willing to entertain any offer below the existing rate.” But ESPN “prides itself on its fiscal responsibility,” and has a “sophisticated internal pricing model to gauge the estimated ROI on live rights investments.” Byers wondered “would it be worth it” if a media partner “does come in with a slightly better offer” than the roughly $300M ESPN “probably would have been willing to pay.” Byers: “When was the last time you noticed an ambitious marketing campaign for Apple TV+’s Friday Night Baseball, or saw a Scott Van Pelt type reviewing highlights from around the league on the platform?” ESPN at least provided the league’s fans with “some semblance of a home base.” But Manfred “had an impossible choice.” Caving to ESPN would have “permanently and fundamentally reset the league’s market in advance of the coming Fox and WBD renegotiations.” Forgoing ESPN, on the other hand, may have “put his game further out in the wilderness.” Still, there are “plenty of reason to believe that Manfred can pull himself out of this jam” (PUCK, 2/21).
WHAT COMES NEXT? In Chicago, Paul Sullivan wrote fans can expect MLB to “hook up with one of the younger, prettier streamers like Apple TV+ that talks a good game but hasn’t been able to replicate the ESPN experience with its younger play-by-play men and women and ‘hipper’ analysts of diverse hair colors.” Comparing Apple to ESPN is like “comparing the Colorado Rockies to the Los Angeles Dodgers” as they “might play the same game, but they’re not in the same ballpark.” Sullivan: “ESPN is the king, for all its faults. Apple is beloved only by a generation of fans born after the Red Sox broke their curse” (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 2/22).
FRACTURED RELATIONSHIP: USA TODAY’s Gabe Lacques wrote even as MLB faces “significant uncertainty over how its product will be broadcast locally, nationally and streamed directly to the consumer,” it was “wise to say no thanks when ESPN suggested a significant cut in rights fees.” The only thing “worse than getting marginalized by your rightsholder is divorcing them and disappearing altogether.” Yet MLB “really has nothing to fear.” Landing highlights on SportsCenter’s A block “isn’t the prime bit of real estate it once was.” That is “not to say ESPN and MLB won’t reunite.” But the partnership will “never be the same, a fracture more the result of an extremely stratified broadcast and entertainment ecosystem rather than a few hundred million dollars disputed between old friends” (USA TODAY, 2/23). In Minneapolis, Jim Souhan wrote maybe ESPN and MLB will “find a way to work together after this season,” but fans “will likely never return to the days when you could turn on one of ESPN’s channels during the summer and find something baseball-related, featuring faces and voices you liked and trusted” (MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE, 2/22).
BREAKING UP: In Boston, Chad Finn wrote it is “sad news” for those that “have the ‘Baseball Tonight’ theme song rattling around in our heads.” It is “disconcerting that ESPN is splitting with baseball, and TNT and the NBA are going their separate ways in the same year.” Those are two “sports television divorces that we couldn’t have imagined even a few years ago” (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/22).
