MLB and ESPN Will Part Ways After the 2025 Season

Sports viewership as of late has felt like a new frontier. Every league, team and industry is trying to figure out the best way to settle the “Wild Wild West.” For instance, NFL Sunday Ticket has moved to streaming via YouTube TV; additionally, Netflix and Amazon has began streaming football games as well. Over in the NBA, they completely revamped things with TNT and Inside the NBA. And now even changes are coming to Major League Baseball. On Thursday evening the official bombshell was dropped, the MLB and ESPN will part ways after the 2025 season.

There had been some rumblings that this could be happening. And now it looks as though such rumors were confirmed to be true. Both parties do not seem to be on the same page anymore and the premiere sports network as well as professional league have decided to amicably go separate ways.

But why? Well, according to MLB commissioner, Rob Manfred; one reason seems to be that he has, “not been pleased with the minimal coverage that MLB has received on ESPN’s platforms.”

ESPN offered up a brief statement about the situation:

“We are grateful for our longstanding relationship with Major League Baseball and proud of how ESPN’s coverage super-serves fans. In making this decision, we applied the same discipline and fiscal responsibility that has built ESPN’s industry-leading live events portfolio as we continue to grow our audience across linear, digital and social platforms. As we have been throughout the process, we remain open to exploring new ways to serve MLB fans across our platforms beyond 2025.”

MLB and ESPN Will Part Ways After the 2025 Season

What about Major League Baseball? Well, they had a bit more to say. Here is their official statement straight from their PR Communications office:

“We have had a long and mutually beneficial partnership with ESPN that dates back to its first MLB game in 1990. Unfortunately in recent years, we have seen ESPN scale back their baseball coverage and investment in a way that is not consistent with the sport’s appeal or performance on their platform. Given that MLB provides strong viewership, valuable demographics, and the exclusive right to cover unique events like the Home Run Derby, ESPN’s demand to reduce rights fees is simply unacceptable. As a result, we have mutually agreed to terminate our agreement.

Entering the 2025 season, MLB is enjoying tremendous momentum led by generational talent on the field and an entertaining brand of baseball due to rule changes which have improved the pace of play and action on the field. The results have generated increases in attendance, viewership, streaming, international growth and overall fan engagement. The positive energy around the sport has also led to significant interest from both traditional media companies and streaming services who would like to obtain rights to MLB games. We will be exploring those opportunities for a new agreement which would start in the 2026 season following the conclusion of ESPN’s agreement at the end of this year.

The MLB-ESPN partnership has been an important and long-lasting relationship that has helped both organizations achieve great success. As we get ready for the 36th season of Sunday Night Baseball, we look forward to a successful final year of MLB on ESPN in 2025.”

The end of an era. And once again the landscape of sports broadcasting is shifting yet again. What does the future hold? Time shall tell.

Until all becomes clear and more firmly mapped out. ESPN left these parting thoughts about their recent “divorce,” “There was a March 1 deadline for MLB and ESPN to opt out of the final three years of their contract. The sides agreed to a seven-year deal in 2021 that averaged $550 million per season. 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. ESPN is still open to pursuing a deal with a reduced rights fee after seeing deals struck with Apple and Roku. Apple pays $85 million per season for a Friday night package it has aired since 2022, while Roku’s deal for Sunday afternoon games is worth $10 million per year.”

Thoughts on MLB and ESPN Will Part Ways After the 2025 Season!? Well let’s connect then you Feen! We are always around on social media posting as well as chatting away. And we would love to hear some POV from you. Therefore, join the discussion and talk all things Sports Feen; athletics as well as breaking industry news related with us by dropping a comment or two. Get into our comment section on YT; or also hit us up on our TikTok page or tweet us @SportsFeen.