ESPN and MLB End Decades-Long Partnership After 2025 Season

Image credits: Marta Lavandier/AP

ESPN and Major League Baseball are parting ways and will end their decades-long partnership after the 2025 season, the league announced on Thursday, a little less than a month before the start of the season. The network first aired MLB games in 1990, but the league said in a statement that it is dismayed at how ESPN has pared back its baseball coverage. The deal between ESPN and MLB had been a reported $550 million per season, the league’s second-largest package of national TV rights, and was set to expire after the 2028 season.

The league believes it is riding a wave of momentum and interest that should improve upon that ESPN deal. MLB drew its largest live attendance figures in seven years last season, drawing more than 71.3 million fans into ballparks during 2024. It also saw jumps in television viewership, including on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball,” which is typically the premier game of the week and has been a staple of the baseball weekly viewing schedule for years. The market for media rights to live sports contests has become increasingly lucrative in recent years as sports remain some of the only consistent ratings draws for cable and broadcast networks. The league is exploring new opportunities for a new agreement which would start in the 2026 season following the conclusion of ESPN’s agreement at the end of this year.

ESPN wants to continue to be in business with Major League Baseball going forward, but there are plenty of other summer sports programming options that are grabbing fans’ attention. The source pointed to the NHL Playoffs and the growing popularity of the WNBA as other programming options for ESPN if Major League Baseball decides to leave ESPN completely. Noting that it was a business decision, the source added that the cost of the deal and the games that ESPN got in return simply were no longer worth the investment. Here are some key statistics and facts about the partnership:

• ESPN has carried MLB games since 1990
• The deal between ESPN and MLB was worth $550 million per season
• MLB drew over 71.3 million fans into ballparks during 2024
• ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” is typically the premier game of the week

The move amounts to a big bet by MLB on its ability to attract new investment by a different company, whether that involves streaming or traditional cable companies. MLB has already tried national regular-season experiment after experiment with new partners, from Facebook to Twitter to YouTube to Peacock to Apple to Roku. To borrow baseball vernacular, MLB has gone hitless on all these deals. The first four were not renewed, while the last two depressed the financial market for the sport, helping to place it in this ESPN conundrum. Apple and Roku are paying $100 million combined for regular-season games. The sport is facing a national and local sports media rights crisis that could have major ramifications in how the game is consumed and very possibly lead to huge headaches when the league’s collective bargaining agreement with the players is up in December 2026.

Maybe Amazon Prime Video or Apple or another network is ready to take baseball in — Manfred said MLB has “two potential options” — but, even if the money is there, none of these places are proven with national regular-season games. Manfred, a hard-nosed negotiator through and through, did fire a sharp brushback pitch as he informed his teams of the ESPN news in a memo. The league needs to figure out alternatives to keep fans watching and paying. ESPN will launch a direct-to-consumer platform this summer, meaning viewers won’t be required to have a cable package to see all its programming. Pitaro has stated publicly that he wants to be part of the solution to MLB’s local rights dilemma.