ESPN and Major League Baseball appeared headed for an ugly separation after the network opted out of its rights deal in February.
Nine months later, it appears to be the best thing to happen to both parties.
ESPN has a reworked deal that includes out-of-market streaming rights, while NBC and Netflix will show games as part of a new three-year media rights agreement announced by MLB on Wednesday.
“I think it’s really important that we manage to continue a relationship with ESPN,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said. “They’ve been kind of the bedrock of our broadcast program for a long time.”
NBC and its streaming service Peacock will become the new home of “Sunday Night Baseball” and the wild-card round of the MLB playoffs, while Netflix will have the Home Run Derby (from MLB All-Star Game festivities) and two games.
The three deals will average nearly $800 million per year. ESPN will still pay $550 million, while the NBC deal is worth $200 million and the Netflix deal is worth $50 million.
ESPN, which has carried baseball since 1990, loses postseason games and the Home Run Derby but gains something more valuable for its bottom line by becoming the rights holder for MLB.TV, which will be available on the ESPN app.
ESPN also gets the in-market streaming rights for the six teams whose games are produced by MLB: the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres and Seattle Mariners.
Even though ESPN no longer has “Sunday Night Baseball,” it will have 30 exclusive games, primarily on weeknights and in the summer months.
“We’re excited to have a midweek package back out there,” Manfred said. “This is an evolution of a relationship. Long relationships go through these things, and it’s an evolution that I think is significant. I think it is consonant with ESPN’s focus on streaming going forward.”
Baseball is the second league that has its out-of-market digital package available in the U.S. on ESPN’s platform. The NHL moved its package to ESPN in 2021.
NBC, which celebrates its 100th anniversary next year, has a long history with MLB, albeit not much recently. The network carried games from 1939 through 1989. It was part of the short-lived Baseball Network with ABC in 1994-95 and then showed playoff games from 1996 through 2000.
Its first game will be on March 26, when the Los Angeles Dodgers — the two-time reigning World Series champions — host the Diamondbacks in a matchup of National League West Division teams.
The 25 Sunday night games will air mostly on NBC, with the rest on the newly revamped NBC Sports Network. All will stream on Peacock.
The first “Sunday Night Baseball” game on NBC will be April 12, with the next one in May, a gap filled by the network’s coverage of the NBA playoffs.
The addition of baseball games gives NBC a year-round slate of sports on Sunday nights. It has televised the NFL’s “Sunday Night Football” since 2006 and will debut a Sunday night slate of NBA games in February.
NBC will also have a prime-time MLB game on Labor Day.
The early afternoon games on Sundays also return to Peacock, which had them in 202-23. They will lead into a studio whip-around show before the Sunday night game.
NBC and Peacock will also handle the Major League Futures game the day before the Home Run Derby and coverage of the first round of the amateur draft on the Saturday heading into the MLB All-Star break.
The baseball deals for Netflix are in alignment with its strategy of going for big events in major sports. The streaming service will have an NFL Christmas doubleheader this season for the second straight year.
Besides the Home Run Derby, Netflix will have the first game of the season on March 25, when three-time American League MVP Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees visit the Giants. It also gets the Home Run Derby and the Field of Dreams game in Dyersville, Iowa, on Aug. 13, when the Twins face the Philadelphia Phillies near the site where the 1989 movie starring Kevin Costner was filmed.
Netflix will stream a MLB special event game each year.
The negotiations around the other deals were complicated due to the fact that MLB was also trying not to slight two of its other rights holders. MLB receives an average of $729 million from Fox and $470 million from Turner Sports per year under deals that expire after the 2028 season.
Fox’s Saturday nights have been mainly sports the past couple years, with a mix of baseball, college football, college basketball and motorsports.
Apple TV has had “Friday Night Baseball” since 2022.
The deals also set up Manfred for future negotiations. He would like to see MLB take a more national approach to its rights instead of a large percentage of its games being on regional sports networks.