ESPN has announced it will not renew its Major League Baseball broadcast rights deal beyond the 2025 season. This decision, anticipated by many, marks the end of a long partnership between ESPN and MLB for national broadcasts, a relationship dating back to the 1980s. The network cited its focus on its upcoming direct-to-consumer streaming service as a key factor.
In recent years, ESPN had already reduced its baseball programming, including scaling back its studio show, “Baseball Tonight.” The decision to forgo the MLB contract aligns with broader cost-cutting measures at Disney and a reassessment of ESPN's sports rights portfolio. While ESPN extended its NBA rights deal last summer, other contracts have been restructured or dropped.
“We are grateful for our longstanding relationship with Major League Baseball and proud of how ESPN’s coverage super-serves fans,” ESPN stated. “In making this decision, we applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN’s industry-leading live events portfolio as we continue to grow our audience across linear, digital and social platforms.”
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, in a memo to team owners, explained the split as necessary to maximize the league's media rights value. “We do not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform,” Manfred wrote. “In order to best position MLB to optimize our rights going into our next deal cycle, we believe it is not prudent to devalue our rights with an existing partner but rather to have our marquee regular season games, Home Run Derby and Wild Card playoff round on a new broadcast and/or streaming platform.”
Manfred confirmed MLB is in talks with other broadcasters, though he didn’t name them. The league is actively seeking new distribution avenues, partly due to the decline of regional sports networks. ESPN's “Sunday Night Baseball” has been a cornerstone of national MLB coverage for years, and its departure will significantly alter how fans access games.
This development reflects the broader changes in sports media, as leagues and networks adapt to declining cable subscriptions and the rising popularity of streaming. While ESPN will continue airing MLB games until 2025, the network's departure as a national broadcaster represents a pivotal shift in the landscape of baseball broadcasting.