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Sports broadcasting is in a state of flux, and not just when it comes to Major League Baseball games. For decades now, cable has been at the forefront, and it has paid dividends for leagues to align themselves with cable companies, literally, thanks to the carriage fees that every customer — sports-watching or not — were saddled with. With cable subscriptions trending down, though, and streaming and cable alternatives having taken hold, a new future is needed, to provide new revenue streams. Or, at least, ones that aren’t headed in the wrong direction.
This, in a general sense, is old news with MLB — I wrote about their problems with the regional sports network (RSN) model and the kinds of complaints and negotiating tactics that the Players Association would have to deal with from management back in 2021 for Baseball Prospectus, and it wasn’t necessarily new then, either. It’s reared its head in some new ways of late, however, such as with the end of the ESPN/MLB partnership looming, and MLB’s pretty open desire to switch to a different revenue-sharing model that’s more akin to that of the NFL.
In addition, in the last couple of weeks, we’ve had some new wrinkles thrown in, regarding MLB’s quest for adapting to a changing market. Andrew Marchand at The Athletic reported earlier in April that MLB is exploring licensing deals for MLB.tv, their streaming service that allows you to, blackouts excepted, watch whatever MLB games you’d like rather than just local ones. As Marchand put it:
While MLB.tv may be leased to a platform, in a post-cable dominant ecosystem, a carrier having exclusive access to most local baseball will likely have a competitive advantage as MLB.tv offers hundreds of games to fans. There are also regular season national exclusive window deals with ESPN, Fox, Roku, Apple and some other channels that are excluded from MLB.tv.
The ESPN portion of that is up after 2025, though, MLB does want to add more broadcast TV dates to its schedule to help get the game into more households. That’s a likely area for someone like FOX* to pounce on, given they’re (1) already publicly pleased with their existing deal, (2) have shown interest in expanding the relationship in a post-ESPN world, and (3) have a broadcast TV option, not just their cable ones. They’re also expected to launch a direct-to-consumer streaming platform later in 2025, one that will include their sports options, which could give them interest in licensing MLB.tv to give their new venture something the other platforms do not.
Expanding the relationship with Amazon is another option — right now, MLB.tv is a service that can be added to a Prime account at a discount, but is not something Amazon has the actual rights to. As they delve deeper into the sports world to diversify their offerings, though, something like MLB.tv could appeal to them, especially with ESPN surrendering some territory in the space. And hey, ESPN might even be pulled back in if they decide loads of local games on their app could be what helps push those subscriber figures up. Since ESPN is under the Disney umbrella, which includes ABC, there would still be room for some broadcast TV games in that situation, as well, which is something Amazon can’t offer.
The point is that MLB has options to mull over before everything expires following the 2028 season, as well as options to consider, in the short-term, as a replacement for the three years of ESPN that were supposed to follow this season. And the fate of MLB Network might also be tied to those options: MLB isn’t alone in this by any means, with even the NFL looking to unload their own property in the space, but the era of cable-broadcasted state media might be coming to an end, as cable’s viability in the space dwindles. As John Ourand said on Marchand’s podcast (transcription via Awful Announcing):
“These league-owned networks, they’re losing subscribers by a ton,” Ourand began. “And so that’s what we’re seeing with the NFL talking with ESPN about some sort of sale of NFL Media. I wouldn’t be surprised if, like, when the rights come up, something happens with the MLB Network. NBA TV is sort of, like, it’s going to lose all of its playoff games next season and some of the exclusive games that it has.
“And so, in the early aughts, all of the leagues decided, like, ‘We want to launch our own networks and we want to control our own media.’ And it worked really well. They all grew. They all got to be like, you know, in 70 million households. They all forced their way onto cable systems. NFL has, you know, exclusive games, so all the cable operators had to carry them. MLB Network would put exclusive playoff games on that network. And so they grew and they were really successful. And now, they’re not as successful and so it makes sense to get out of that business.”
Ourand went on to say that he’s curious which of the leagues will start their own streaming service that will also air games on it to pull people in, which is part of what the strategy was when these networks were created for cable. The point is that we’re in a real transition period here, with MLB and others trying to figure out how to recreate the magic of the revenue that existed in the carriage fees era. That era is ongoing, yes, but it’s also coming to an end at some point, and no league wants to be left behind, leverage-less, when that happens.
*While I work as a contractor for FOX Sports Digital’s news desk, there is no inside knowledge here, only evidence-based speculation.
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