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ESPN In Negotiations To Extend MLB Media Rights

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Don’t expect Major League Baseball games to leave the Worldwide Leader In Sports anytime soon.

According to industry sources close to the situation but wished to remain anonymous, Walt Disney-owned ESPN is actively in negotiations with Major League Baseball for an extension of their media rights to show live games. The deal would come on the heels of FOX’ reaching an extension that runs seven years and begins in 2022 for $5.1 billion. ESPN’s current agreement with MLB expires in 2021 and has a total value of $5.6 billion over an eight-year span.

There had been some questions as to whether ESPN was fully committed to baseball content with news that Baseball Tonight would stop as daily show on the network during the season. But that news is, in some senses, old. For two years now, BBTN has been “Sunday Night Countdown” programming leading up to Sunday Night Baseball. That move saw a 15% increase in ratings for the show in 2018. Baseball Tonight will also continue to be part of MLB’s “jewel events” such as the All-Star Game, MLB Little League Classic, Home Run Derby & All-Star Game and postseason, as well as events such as the Baseball Winter Meetings.

“Baseball content is an enormous part of ESPN’s strategy,” said ESPN spokesman Ben Cafardo. “Our ongoing commitment to the sport includes Baseball Tonight, which will continue to be an integral part of our coverage plans. Nothing has changed with Baseball Tonight.

In some ways, the news that ESPN will continue to provide MLB content should come as no surprise given commitments that have already transpired around baseball. In 2018, they hired Alex Rodriguez as a color analyst for games. In the last two months they have re-signed Jessica Mendoza, Mark Teixeira, David Ross and Rick Sutcliffe as part of their MLB on-air talent roster. They will produce the international games that the league is embarking on in 2019 including Tokyo, London and Monterrey, Mexico. And most-recently, they lured Jeff Passan away from Yahoo! Sports to serve as a top MLB Insider. On the digital side, ESPN airs a daily game on ESPN+ - its direct-to-consumer subscription service. The combination of its three-games per week TV schedule and its ESPN+ schedule means that ESPN airs more MLB games than ever before in its 30-year history.

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