{"id":105007,"date":"2025-02-23T10:06:25","date_gmt":"2025-02-23T10:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/advertising\/mlb-and-espn-break-up-their-team-over-fees-and-coverage\/"},"modified":"2025-02-23T10:06:25","modified_gmt":"2025-02-23T10:06:25","slug":"mlb-and-espn-break-up-their-team-over-fees-and-coverage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=105007","title":{"rendered":"MLB and ESPN Break Up Their Team Over Fees and Coverage"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>After tipping their pitches considerably in recent years, Major League Baseball and ESPN <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mlb\/story\/_\/id\/43943678\/espn-mlb-end-broadcast-partnership-2025-season\" target=\"_blank\">announced Thursday<\/a> that they have \u201cmutually agreed\u201d to end their broadcast rights deal with three years left to go.<\/p>\n<p>While MLB and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/category\/sports-marketing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">sports<\/a> network have been paired in one form or another since 1990, their current deal was supposed to extend seven years into 2028 and pay the league $550 million a year. It will now end after the 2025 season after both sides faced a March 1 deadline to opt out of the contract.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are grateful for our longstanding relationship with Major League Baseball and proud of how ESPN\u2019s coverage super-serves fans,\u201d ESPN said in a statement. \u201cIn making this decision, we applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN\u2019s industry-leading live events portfolio as we continue to grow our audience across linear, digital, and social platforms.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The network noted that it remains open to \u201cexploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row justify-content-center\">\n<div class=\"col-12\">\n<section class=\"section section--teaser section--teaser_partners section--teaser_partners--horizontal px-0 py-4\">\n<div class=\"section--teaser_partner\">                         <a class=\"link-reset text-decoration-none\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/brand-marketing\/mlb-uzma-rawn-dowler-cmo\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/uzma-rawn-dowler-MLB-CMO.png?w=640&amp;h=360&amp;crop=1\" alt=\"Veteran baseball marketer Uzma Rawn Dowler has been named MLB\" s=\"\" cmo=\"\" thanks=\"\" to=\"\" a=\"\" deep=\"\" bench=\"\" for=\"\" sports=\"\" marketing=\"\" experience=\"\" with=\"\" the=\"\" league.=\"\" class=\"image image--partner\"\/><br \/><\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>How we got here<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>ESPN apparently balked at continuing its current agreement, especially over MLB\u2019s other less lucrative deals. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/convergent-tv\/major-league-baseball-televisaunivision-media-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\">More recent MLB rights deals<\/a> have Apple shelling out $85 million for Friday night games since 2022, and Roku pays $10 million a year for Sunday afternoon games. But the league took a bat to that argument.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGiven the strength of our product, we do not believe a reduction in fees is warranted,\u201d MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said Thursday in a memo reported by<a href=\"https:\/\/fos.cmail19.com\/t\/t-l-skjhdjd-tjjkhilttl-u\/\" target=\"_blank\"> The Athletic<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"row justify-content-center\">\n<div class=\"col-12\">\n<section class=\"section section--teaser section--teaser_partners section--teaser_partners--horizontal px-0 py-4\">\n<div class=\"section--teaser_partner\">                         <a class=\"link-reset text-decoration-none\" href=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/morning-media-newsfeed\/amazon-nears-major-deal-to-broadcast-nba-mlb-nhl-games-on-prime-streaming\/\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.adweek.com\/wp-content\/themes\/adweek-next\/src\/images\/adweek-placeholder.svg\" alt=\"Amazon is in talks to become a major player in regional sports broadcasting for the National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and the National Hockey League with a surprise deal [&#x2026;]\" class=\"image image--partner\"\/><br \/><\/a>                     <\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p><!--nextpage--><\/p>\n<p>ESPN\u2019s current contract includes 30 regular-season games, mostly on Sunday nights, and the wild-card postseason series. ESPN also hosts All-Star weekend\u2019s Home Run Derby and 10 spring training games.<\/p>\n<p>The eight-year deal beforehand, from 2014 through 2021, aired up to 90 regular-season games and the \u201cBaseball Tonight\u201d news and highlights show, which ESPN dropped in 2017.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport\u2019s appeal or performance on their platform,\u201d MLB said in a statement. \u201cGiven that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN\u2019s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>MLB also has an annual $729 million deal with Fox and a $470 million yearly deal with Turner Sports. Those contracts run through the 2028 season.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After tipping their pitches considerably in recent years, Major League Baseball and ESPN announced Thursday that they have \u201cmutually agreed\u201d to end their broadcast rights deal with three years left to go. While MLB and the sports network have been paired in one form or another since 1990, their current deal was supposed to extend [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":105009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12023],"tags":[6792,13841,24365,10939,6544,329,48149,3705],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-105007","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advertising","tag-break","tag-coverage","tag-espn","tag-fees","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-sports-marketing-news","tag-team"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>MLB and ESPN Break Up Their Team Over Fees and Coverage - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=105007\" \/>\n<link rel=\"next\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=105007&page=2\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"MLB and ESPN Break Up Their Team Over Fees and Coverage - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After tipping their pitches considerably in recent years, Major League Baseball and ESPN announced Thursday that they have \u201cmutually agreed\u201d to end their broadcast rights deal with three years left to go. 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