Major League Baseball is reportedly discussing the possibility of licensing the streaming platform MLB.TV. Per a report from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic, the league has discussed the possibility in talks with broadcasters/streamers. It’s unclear how MLB.TV consumers would be impacted if any deal is struck.
There are several moving parts in the league’s media strategy, most of them connected to the gradual pivot from regional sports networks (RSNs) to direct-to-consumer streaming. RSNs have been a massive part of the league’s business model for years but that has been chipped away at recently. Prior to streaming, many people ordered cable bundles which included baseball broadcasters, even if they didn’t watch the sport much. This was a big part of each club’s annual revenue streams and in some cases still is.
But with cord cutting and streaming, the league and teams have had to adjust. Main Street Sports, formerly known as Diamond Sports Group, was in bankruptcy for much of the past two years. They recently emerged from that status but with a smaller portfolio of MLB clubs under contract. Going into 2025, there are five teams that have no RSN deal and have MLB handling their broadcasts and streaming: the Guardians, Twins, Padres, Diamondbacks and Rockies.
Even the clubs that still have deals with Main Street aren’t committed for the long haul. It’s been reported that none of the current contracts go beyond 2028. MLB’s national deals with Fox and Turner are also set to expire after 2028. The same was true of ESPN, though that deal recently fell apart when both sides agreed to opt out, though ESPN is still broadcasting games through the 2025 season.
In addition to TV broadcasts, most clubs also have a direct-to-consumer streaming option of some kind. This week’s report from Marchand indicates that there are only three club that don’t have such a product available: the Astros, Nationals and Orioles.
MLB.TV has been around for decades, offering baseball fans the chance to pay one fee for the opportunity to stream all games, with some exceptions. Certain games have been carved out of MLB.TV if offered as exclusives on other platforms, while local blackout rules have also been in effect.
The hope of the league and commissioner Rob Manfred is that they can move away from blackouts, even in some sort of large package that resembles MLB.TV. There will be challenges in accomplishing that. Some teams still have very profitable RSNs and many of them are owned in whole or in part by the club itself. Such clubs would be reluctant to lumping their product together with less-popular clubs and effectively sharing their revenues.
There are many factors at play and the league is seemingly trying to get many buyers at the table. Back in November, Evan Drellich of The Athletic reported on the league’s long-term plans for getting a big deal done a few years down the road. He noted that executives from Apple, Amazon, CBS, Disney/ESPN, DirecTV, Fox, Netflix, NBC/Peacock, Roku, YouTube and Warner Bros.-Discovery were all present at the World Series.
MLB is seemingly open to various offers, perhaps from multiple companies. In recent years, they have split up their rights to companies like Fox, ESPN, Turner, Apple, Roku, YouTube and others, in addition to the local RSNs. It’s unclear exactly how MLB.TV would also fit into a new arrangement but it’s possible that the league could license it alongside other rights as part of a larger package. If a platform did license the rights, they might then market MLB.TV to consumers with other baseball games or even other sports, depending on the company and their portfolio. Speculatively speaking, Apple could license MLB.TV and then sell it to consumers but also include the Apple Friday Night Baseball games that currently aren’t available to MLB.TV subscribers. More information is likely to come out over time.
Photo courtesy of Rick Osentoski, Imagn Images
