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ESPN & MLB Play Hardball

The worthies in Bristol are starting to feel that they’re wildly overpaying for Sunday Night Baseball, especially given Apple’s and Roku’s far more frugal deals, and they’re threatening to exercise their out clause. Meanwhile, Netflix, Amazon, and others are warming up in the bullpen.

New York Yankees anthony volpe
ESPN executives have told MLB that as early as next month, the network is likely to exercise an out clause in its contract to try and negotiate a better deal. Photo: Luke Hales/Getty Images
John Ourand
February 14, 2025

A new, more fiscally conservative era has dawned under ESPN’s Jimmy Pitaro. Sure, he agreed to dig deep to pay the NFL $2.7 billion, the NBA $2.6 billion, and the CFP $1.3 billion (and that’s just the annual cost of those gargantuan media rights deals). But Pitaro has also passed on rights when he couldn’t make the numbers work, unsentimentally ending the network’s relationship with MLS after nearly 30 years and deciding against a deal for Pac-12 rights despite ESPN’s big investment in college sports. He recently told F1 executives that ESPN wouldn’t renew their $90 million U.S. rights deal, either, after the racing circuit asked for more money. (F1 executives have started talking to Netflix and NBC, among others, instead.)