MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced that NBC, Apple, and ESPN are competing for the league’s “Sunday Night Baseball” broadcast rights, which ESPN relinquished earlier this year. Manfred intends to select a winner within the month, noting that the rights could be divided between two bidders.
Alex Sherman for CNBC Sport:
The reemergence of ESPN as a potential home for “Sunday Night Baseball” is both surprising and not surprising.
It’s surprising given Manfred’s blunt comments after ESPN chose not to pay an average of $550 million a year for the last three years of the rights. “We do not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform,” Manfred wrote to MLB owners in February in a memo first obtained by The Athletic.
That seemed to close the door on ESPN. And yet, here ESPN is back in the mix…
One reason ESPN’s return to the table isn’t a shock — ratings for ESPN’s MLB games are up 6% from last season, averaging 1.71 million viewers per game. That’s the highest average audience at the All-Star break in eight years.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple TV+, of course, already streams “Friday Night Baseball,” exclusive weekly doubleheaders, now in its fourth season.
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