Rumors of Sunday Night Baseball‘s demise might be greatly exaggerated.
Last week, reports surfaced that ESPN opted out of its current contract with Major League Baseball, making the league’s future on the network uncertain. And while MLB claims the opt out was “mutual” and fueled by ESPN’s dearth of coverage surrounding the sport, it was widely expected that the network would be opting out of its $550 million yearly agreement to seek a better deal, not necessarily to rid its airwaves of the league entirely.
Recent reporting backs this up. Puck’s John Ourand wrote recently that ESPN did not believe it was getting half a billion dollars worth of value out of its current deal that includes Sunday Night Baseball, the Home Run Derby, and the Wild Card games. So the network presented the league two options: add more inventory to the package to maintain the same $550 million fee, or provide us the same inventory at a reduced rate.
MLB chose neither, and is now focused on taking that inventory to the open market in hopes that a new bidder will come along, and perhaps strike a long term deal with baseball come 2028 when the remainder of the league’s national media rights come up.
But one prominent MLB reporter isn’t counting ESPN out just yet. The Athletic’s Evan Drellich, who has broken a number of stories about MLB’s ongoing media rights upheaval, recently appeared on Ourand’s The Varsity podcast to temper expectations about the perceived acrimony between the league and ESPN.
“I’m not of the opinion that this really is the end of Sunday Night Baseball [on ESPN],” Drellich told Ourand. “We saw MLB, Rob Manfred, and Diamond Sports Group and Sinclair, go through a very very very ugly process, only in the end to have MLB reunite with Diamond in several different markets. Compared to that, this is pretty tame.”
“In no way at this point do I think… the ESPN-MLB relationship is truly finally done. They’re going to keep talking,” Drellich concluded.
It’s a great point raised by Drellich. These types of negotiations have had a tendency to get ugly under MLB commissioner Rob Manfred’s purview, but at the end of the day this is a business. And if ESPN and MLB can come to terms with something that can be mutually beneficial, whether that is now or in 2028, it would be shortsighted for both sides to rule out an agreement with the other.
But given Manfred’s recent rhetoric, it looks like the league wants to get others involved, at least for the next few years. Ourand even reported earlier this week that the league was “hellbent” on finding other partners. That said, it’s too early to rule out ESPN, even if the current optics would indicate otherwise.
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