hopes<\/a> to announce by the All-Star Game the short-term, three-year future for the rights to the Derby, Sunday Night Baseball and eight-to-12 playoff games.<\/p>\nNBC, Apple and a return to ESPN have been the most prominent names in play, but it remains unclear if MLB will be able to fully restore the $1.65 billion that ESPN opted out of paying over the next three years.<\/p>\n
ESPN didn\u2019t invoke the opt-out clause because it no longer valued baseball. Rather, ESPN balked at the idea of paying an average of $550 million per year for the remainder of the package. ESPN\u2019s deal was seemingly overpriced in a market that values scarcity, uniqueness and a league\u2019s most pivotal matchups. Plus, in comparison to MLB\u2019s other national packages, it is hard not to see that ESPN was doling out too much.<\/p>\n
After the 2028 season, the contracts with Fox and TNT Sports will be over. Fox pays $729 million per year on average for a package that features the World Series, and TNT Sports, which has a league championship series, is a little less than $500 million per season. Major League Baseball also has its international rights up at that same point. A platform like Netflix might have particular interest in the Japanese market, where MLB, led by the Dodgers, continues to surge, as evidenced by the popularity of the Tokyo Series.<\/p>\n
What should MLB do?\u00a0<\/p>\n
You could make a pretty good George Costanza argument here. There is an old Seinfeld episode where George just did the opposite of his typical, hapless instincts, finding life-changing successes with the strategy. MLB should consider that for its future media plan. At the moment, the league is not set up particularly well (though, it has had a good ratings year and big attendance numbers).<\/p>\n
Its current media setup is a total mess: Like a lot of sports, MLB has gone from \u201cWho\u2019s on first?\u201d to \u201cWho has the game?\u201d<\/p>\n
Besides the deals listed above, MLB has an exclusive Friday Night Baseball double-header package with Apple TV+ for $85 million a year, while Roku pays just $10 million a season for late morning\/early Sunday afternoon games. While MLB likes to call these experiments, the Roku deal in particular is mind-bogglingly ill-advised, as it set a new marker for how much exclusive national regular season games should cost and, as an added bonus, made the ad market more difficult for Fox, ESPN and TNT Sports because Roku charged so much less for its ad space than the other networks. Apple, which is paying far less than ESPN\u2019s deal, receives basically the same exclusive games on Fridays that ESPN has on Sundays.<\/p>\n
Manfred has indicated a desire to reset the formula. Taking a page from a \u201cformer Yankee executive,\u201d Mr. Costanza, \u201cOpposite Rob\u201d is going in the right direction.<\/p>\n
Before we get to the plan, we need to talk about RSNs<\/p>\n
Well, we still haven\u2019t talked in detail about the regional sports network issue. With cable diminishing, the RSNs, whose most important clients have been baseball, are decomposing. MLB would like to have a \u201cnationalized\u201d local rights package, where fans can directly subscribe to their favorite team\u2019s games \u2014 no matter where they live \u2014 by the end of the decade.<\/p>\n
However, teams like the Yankees and Dodgers are worth a lot more in regional rights fees than clubs like the Pirates and Marlins and would need to see revenue sharing readjusted to make it worth their while to be part of a nationalized local-rights deal, or MLB would have to figure out a way to compensate the more valuable clubs. It\u2019s not an easy lift. (Plus, we should mention that hanging over everything is a potential lockout in 2026.)<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the plan \u2026<\/p>\n
The first thing MLB should realize is it is not the NFL. The Home Run Derby is a legit event with strong numbers (averaging 6.4 million viewers over the last four years, while the All-Star Game was at 7.6 million over that same period), but those are dwarfed by every weekly NFL package, whose audiences rate three to five times larger.<\/p>\n
The NBA, which just got an incredible 11-year, $76 billion media deal (and limited itself to three national carriers: ESPN\/ABC, NBC and Amazon Prime Video), made more of its games exclusively national. Manfred has hinted at following that model. Maybe that works. Maybe not. Especially when you consider that neither Apple nor Roku are looked upon as audience-driving successes and neither provides public ratings numbers to prove otherwise.<\/p>\n
But the same way MLB has far greater attendance than the NFL (in part because its teams have 81 regular season home dates compared to at most nine for NFL teams), MLB should lean into the strengths of its consistent, reliable, 7-month-long local fan interest.<\/p>\n
And yet MLB\u2019s current set-up is best described as fan-unfriendly. Going forward, MLB needs to avoid the slicing and dicing that can see a team like the Yankees appear on up to seven networks over a seven-day week: YES, Amazon Prime Video, Apple, TBS, Roku, Fox and ESPN. That\u2019s not good.<\/p>\n
Part 1: Weekdays<\/p>\n
We would create a Monday-through-Friday MLB-branded subscription service to be distributed on as many platforms as possible, including YouTube, ESPN\u2019s new direct-to-consumer platform, Apple, Amazon, Roku and Fubo. Be everywhere, simple and easily accessible. The RSNs would still have weekday games that air locally. But any fan, anywhere, would be able to watch their favorite team, through any streaming platform they use.<\/p>\n
This idea would satisfy subscribers because it would be easy to understand \u2014\u00a0your MLB subscription gets you access to your team\u2019s games, regardless of where you are watching and with no blackouts \u2014 and would have enough games to make subscribing worth it for fans.<\/p>\n
It would also allow the biggest weekend series to have visibility on Friday nights through the subscription service. For example, if the Yankees played the Dodgers over a weekend series, the Friday night game would be on the national MLB subscription service, as well as YES and SportsNet LA for local fans. It would also remove the frustration of not easily understanding where your team\u2019s game is going to air.<\/p>\n
In an ideal world, we would see the league charge somewhere between $4.99 and $9.99 per month, but MLB may look to earn more with a $19.99-$29.99 range. Yes, we\u2019d want the league to make money, but we also want as many people as possible to see the games to keep growing fans, so we\u2019d try to go cheaper.<\/p>\n
The revenue would mostly go to MLB (and shared with teams), with the platforms taking a small cut from every sale. The approach from Monday through Friday is to be everywhere and to satisfy fans with simplicity, volume and value.<\/p>\n
Part 2: Weekends, Events and the Playoffs<\/p>\n
For the weekend games, we would create scarcity by partnering with two or three broadcast entities, be it Fox, ABC, NBC or CBS, with inventory mainly featuring the most popular national teams (Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, Braves, Cubs, Red Sox, Cardinals and anyone who plays their way into this category). These \u201cnational\u201d games would be focused on broadcast TV exclusivity with the possibility of reserving one slot for a streamer.<\/p>\n
On Saturdays, we would ideally want three national games, in windows at 1 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. The prime-time game would be the only game scheduled in prime time, like Fox\u2019s Saturdays, but with more exclusivity. (One backup game will be scheduled in case of rain or where the heat is too great without a dome.)\u00a0 The games not on the national broadcasts would revert back to the monthly subscription service\/RSNs.<\/p>\n
On Sundays, we would try to do the same as Sunday with an NFL-type setup with 1 p.m. ET, 4 p.m. and prime-time windows. Sunday Night Baseball would have the schedule to itself, just like Saturday nights.<\/p>\n
For example, the 1 p.m. national game of the week on Saturdays and Sundays could air on Fox or NBC, the 4 p.m. national game of the week could air on Amazon Prime Video, and the 7 p.m. game of the week could be on ABC.<\/p>\n
The package for participating partner networks would also include regular-season high-value tentpole events that mirror MLB\u2019s very successful \u201cField of Dreams\u201d and Little League park games, Opening Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, the Tokyo Series (along with any other international games), the Home Run Derby and the All-Star Game. These could potentially be more valuable than the regular weekend games.<\/p>\n
The most valuable part of the \u201cnational\u201d package is the playoffs, including the two league championship series and the World Series. The three TV partners would split the playoffs (similar to the current model) and would rotate airing the World Series. This would allow for the most money and exposure.<\/p>\n
With this plan, MLB could potentially maximize the amount of revenue and reach with an easy-to-find, simple-to-understand, affordable global plan, along with modernized localization with the weekday games for the biggest fans.<\/p>\n
For the more casual fan, it would create enticing events and more appointment viewing, with easily accessible weekend games and featuring the most popular teams.<\/p>\n
MLB has to solve for simplicity, scarcity and scale. If it tries to just chase old money looking for the biggest check for now and not the best way to present its beautiful game as the consumption and distribution landscape shifts under its feet, it will be making a mistake.<\/p>\n
MLB has done some smart things in recent years, starting with the pitch clock, to modernize the game. If it doesn\u2019t chase the past and looks forward, it could innovate itself into a model that potentially could be worth more over time.<\/p>\n
(Photo: Stacy Revere \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As an event, the Home Run Derby is built for modern media. Standing out on the summer calendar,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,1794],"class_list":{"0":"post-9493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-mlb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-sports-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}