MLB commissioner Rob Manfred on Sunday night said the league was closing in on a deal to cover the final three years of its legacy TV contract with ESPN.
Manfred dropped in on the Sunday Night Baseball booth during the fourth inning of the Little League Classic matchup between the Mariners and Mets, and during an exchange with ESPN’s Karl Ravech, the MLB boss intimated that a new deal could be announced well before the postseason begins.
“We’re having very detailed conversations with a number of parties, including ESPN,” Manfred said as New York batted with a 3-1 lead over Seattle. “We hope to have it resolved in the next couple of weeks. It’s a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle, but we will have it resolved in the next few weeks.”
In response to Manfred’s update, Ravech said, “I put my hand up for hoping that we stay involved.”
Manfred had hoped to have a deal secured in time to make a formal announcement during last month’s All-Star Game in Atlanta, but the process of finding a possible replacement for ESPN (which triggered its opt-out option on the Sunday night package in February) has been complicated by a flurry of interest from prospective partners, including NBC Sports and Apple. Also up for grabs are the Home Run Derby and the American and National League Wild Card Series.
As for ESPN, while the incumbent wanted out of the latter portion of its original $550/year media deal, chairman Jimmy Pitaro hasn’t been shy about his willingness to assemble some sort of reconfigured arrangement with MLB. To that end, ESPN has been kicking the tires on an opportunity to license the out-of-market MLB.tv package.
Aligning Bristol with a delivery system for local MLB games is consistent with Pitaro’s oft-stated desire to secure a portfolio of the league’s in-market rights. Pitaro first broached the subject last summer during an on-campus ESPN media scrum.
Wherever the ESPN package lands, the deal will expire at the end of the 2028 MLB season—at which point Manfred says he’ll combine the league’s local and national rights into a newly configured package.
During his Sunday night drop-in, Manfred also discussed the potential for a broad realignment of MLB, one that would presumably eliminate the canonical AL and NL in favor of a more travel-friendly geographical clustering.
The hypothetical realignment would coincide with the expansion of MLB to 32 franchises. In one scenario, a four-club “Northeast” division would include near-neighbors the Yankees, Mets, Phillies and Red Sox, while a “Mid-Atlantic” cluster would house the Nationals, Orioles, Pirates and Guardians.
“I think if we expand, it provides us with an opportunity to geographically realign,” Manfred said. “I think we could save a lot of wear and tear on our players in terms of travel. And I think our postseason format would be even more appealing for entities like ESPN, because … that 10 o’clock time slot where we sometimes get Boston-Anaheim would now be two West Coast teams. And so that slot, [which has been] a problem for us sometimes, becomes a real opportunity for our West Coast audience.”
Should such a shakeup occur, it would likely happen after Manfred steps down from his post in January 2029, when his term in office expires.
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