ESPN and MLB are planning to end their decades-long relationship after the 2025 season.
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Conway Gittens: Major League Baseball and ESPN are pulling the plug on their relationship after the 2025 season. The two sides couldn’t agree on a new TV rights deal after the current 7-year, $550 million annual deal expires.
According to an MLB memo obtained by The Athletic, Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred seemed to be taking a hard stand. “While ESPN has stated they would like to continue to have MLB on their platform, particularly in light of the upcoming launch of their DTC product, we do not think its beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform.” DTC refers to direct-to-consumer, which is media speak for a streaming service.
Live sports programming is a hot commodity in the evolving media landscape, where streaming media have an upper hand on traditional cable TV channels. With consumers ditching expensive pay-TV packages for cheaper streaming options, sports leagues like the MLB are following the money. The league already has other media partners who are willing to pay up. It has smaller deals with Apple and Roku. Amazon and Netflix are potential future partners as well. MLB also has the option of expanding its relationship with its other traditional media partner Fox. There also could be potential deals with Comcast’s NBC and Paramount’s CBS. ESPN is a unit of Walt Disney.
Let’s talk financial markets now. United Healthcare is weighing on the Dow and the S&P 500. The health insurance company is under investigation by the Justice Department over its Medicare billing practices, according to the Wall Street Journal. Meanwhile, sales of previously owned homes dropped 4.9 percent in January. The median sales price jumped to $396,900. And the latest consumer sentiment reading isn’t good. Consumers are worried higher tariffs will impact their buying power.
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