NBCUniversal is among the parties taking an early swing at a large package of Major League Baseball rights that ESPN has chosen to let go.
The Comcast-backed media conglomerate is in nascent talks with the league about the package for which ESPN is said to be paying $550 million a year. ESPN in February announced it would “opt out” of its seven-year deal, which was supposed to last through 2028, with executives at the Disney sports giant miffed about smaller deals MLB has struck with Apple and Roku that give those outlets exclusive games for smaller annual fees, undermining the economics of ESPN’s terms. ESPN and MLB had a clause in their current contract that allowed for a break-up, and ESPN could be without professional baseball for the first time in four decades following the end of the current season.
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Enter the Peacock. NBCU and MLB have explored the parameters of a potential deal in recent weeks, according to a person familiar with the matter, noting that neither side felt the conversations were anything more than formative. NBCU would not want to pay the fees ESPN is currently paying, this person says.
Other parties have also expressed interest in the MLB package — including ESPN. Last week, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro acknowledged the company would be interested in a recalibrated pact that included the rights to show local games via a new ESPN streaming service slated to launch in the fall. “We love the game of baseball, and we would like to figure something out with them, ultimately,” Pitaro said. “And yes, that includes local in-market games.”
NBCU, MLB and ESPN all declined to make executives available for comment. Talks between NBCU and MLB were reported previously by The Wall Street Journal.
NBCU’s interest in the ESPN package is spurred in part by the fact that ESPN’s shows exclusive games on Sunday nights — a night that NBC has long reserved in the fall for “Sunday Night Football” and will use in 2026 for Sunday-night basketball games under a new 11-year rights deal struck with the NBA. NBC could use Sunday baseball to fill out its schedule around the year, offering big-league sports to advertisers on a nearly 52-week basis.
NBCU and Major League Baseball are not unfamiliar with each other. NBCUniversal controls a handful of regional-sports networks that air local-market baseball games. The company in 2023 streamed a package of late-Sunday-morning baseball games on its Peacock streaming service, then opted to let the rights go as the league sought a bigger financial windfall.
Other companies may also examine MLB’s games. Fox Corp., another sizable league partner that controls rights to the World Series in the U.S., could seek to extend its schedule. Warner Bros. Discovery also has rights to some baseball games that air on the company’s TBS cable network and stream on Max.
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