{"id":149256,"date":"2025-09-17T00:49:18","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/149256\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T00:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T00:49:18","slug":"rob-manfred-says-mlb-nears-deals-with-espn-nbc-and-netflix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/149256\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob Manfred says MLB nears deals with ESPN, NBC and Netflix"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred confirmed media reports<\/a> that MLB is nearing agreements for 2026-28 with Comcast\u2019s NBCUniversal for the Wild Card Series and Sunday night regular-season games, with Netflix for the All-Star Home Run Derby and with The Walt Disney Co.\u2019s ESPN for a regular-season package plus in-market rights for Arizona, Cleveland, Colorado, Minnesota and San Diego.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have, kind of have agreements in principle. We still have issues that need to be resolved. They are the agreements that have been reported publicly and we hope to push them across the finish line,\u201d Manfred said at Front Office Sports\u2019 \u201cTuned In\u201d event.<\/p>\n

ESPN had opted out of its deal for the Sunday night and Home Run Derby rights for 2026-28. A deal with Apple is to remain in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf those are the agreements that get all the way through and finish,\u201d Manfred said, \u201cwe feel like we made real progress. We feel like Sunday night baseball on broadcast television is important. We worked really hard to keep ESPN in as a partner, and we think starting with Netflix is a really exciting opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manfred said talks with ESPN president James Pitaro resumed in July at the Allen & Co. Sun Valley Conference.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a mutuality of interest in terms of staying partners and it took the parties a little while to think creatively about how we could do that and meet goals that were not exactly aligned,\u201d Manfred said.<\/p>\n

Manfred anticipates a different model when baseball negotiates rights packages that will start in 2029.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be more games available in national packages is my bet, but I could be wrong about that. We have three years to go,\u201d he said. \u201cLocal is not going away when you have 2,430 games. We\u2019re going to need a local solution for those games that are not available in national packages.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said MLB wants each team\u2019s games on fewer channels and added clubs \u201cunderstand that in order to maximize your revenue in today\u2019s media environment, you have to be more national.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting more national and getting more games out there on a national basis has to be your No. 1 priority,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cEverybody seems to buy into that. I think there\u2019s a little more trepidation on what\u2019s going to happen with games that are not included in those national packages.\u201d<\/p>\n

MLB international games update<\/p>\n

Major League Baseball has abandoned plans to play two games in London next season because of scheduling issues with West Ham\u2019s Olympic Stadium and the sport\u2019s television partner.<\/p>\n

MLB had hoped to have the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays meet in London on June 13 and 14, but West Ham is home for its Premier League finale against Leeds on May 24. That left too little time to convert the field to baseball, and MLB was unable to schedule games there for later in June because Fox lacked available broadcast slots due to World Cup commitments.<\/p>\n

Manfred said Tuesday that the London games were definitely off.<\/p>\n

MLB played in London for the first time in 2019 when the New York Yankees swept two games from the Boston Red Sox. A planned two-game series between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs in 2020 was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, and series were split there by the Cardinals and Cubs in 2023 and the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies in 2024.<\/p>\n

MLB\u2019s labor contract included games in Paris for 2025 but\u00a0they were called off<\/a>\u00a0because MLB and the players\u2019 association couldn\u2019t find a promoter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe remain interested in Europe. We think London is an important jumping off point for us,\u201d Manfred said during his Q&A session. \u201cWe have a facility that has come a long way since the first Yankee-Red Sox game. It\u2019s a much better ballpark now than it was due to their willingness to make investments in that. We continue to believe that there\u2019s an opportunity there and that we can get at the developed economies in Europe through that London entree.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manfred said MLB is working on grassroots initiatives in India because of that nation\u2019s affinity for cricket.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re really starting from the bottom up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mexico also is a priority. MLB played regular-season games at Monterrey in 1996, 1999, 2018 and 2019, and at Mexico City in 2023 and 2024. Arizona and San Diego are likely to play at Mexico City next April 25 and 26.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have worked very hard to develop better relationships with the Mexican professional leagues,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cWe think we can ultimately build those relationships in a way that they look like Japan and Korea: The domestic professional league thrives, but we have enough players coming to the U.S. to play that it drives our business here in the U.S.\u201d<\/p>\n

MLB has gained in the Asian market, especially in recent years because of Shohei Ohtani\u2019s following. MLB opened the season at Tokyo in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012, 2019 and this year, and at Seoul, South Korea, in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur approach to international has always been country by country, largely because we find the places we\u2019re interested in to be in different stages of development,\u201d Manfred said. \u201cWith respect to Japan and Korea, we made investments there. We monetarily, and players, in terms of the sweat equity involved, of making the trip to Tokyo to open the season, making the trip to Seoul to open the season, that we have started to see return on those investments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the opportunity to monetize the great fan base that we have in Japan and Korea will show up in terms of purely international revenue, but it will also show up in our national media. My prediction is there will be some of the more media companies \u2014 the streamers will be really interested in the ability to get access to well-developed economies where they don\u2019t have as much penetration as they do in countries like the United States and Canada. So it\u2019s going to show up in different places out of those developed economies.\u201d<\/p>\n

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