Now that we know what comprises the new TV deals for Major League Baseball starting in 2014, let’s summarize and go over them from ESPN to Turner Sports with Fox Sports and MLB Network in between.
Wading through all of the features each partner receives, we know that MLB will increase its total take from the partners, not including MLB Network, to $12.4 billion over the eight year span of the contract starting in 2014 and ending in 2021. This means MLB Network will receive $1.55 billion annually from ESPN, Fox and Turner, just over double of what it is currently receiving from the three networks.
The amount of games seen on national cable will go up to over 140 games a year from over 100 (again not including MLB Network).
The amount of games on broadcast television will go down from 26 games to 12. This is eerily similar to what happened in 1988 when CBS won the rights to MLB for the 1990-1993 seasons, after ABC and NBC combined for 32 national games a year. CBS was later convinced to increase its games to 16 before the 1990 season.
Fox and TBS will alternate leagues every year during the MLB Postseason, meaning TBS will have two American League Division Series and the AL Championship Series one year with Fox taking the National League and vice-versa. MLB Network will carry two LDS games, one from each league.
So let’s go over what each network will receive as part of its contract.
- 90 regular season games mostly on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday nights with reduced local blackouts.
- Games on Opening Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July and Labor Day.
- Rights to the All-Star Home Run Derby.
- Rights to all League Tiebreaker Games.
- Rights to air one Wild Card Playoff Game.
- Rights to highlights for Baseball Tonight.
- Increased streaming rights for WatchESPN.
- Rights for radio and international broadcasts.
12 Saturday afternoon games on Fox (down from 26).- 40 games on cable outlets (either on FX or the new Fox Sports 1).
- All Fox Saturday Baseball games will be made available to MLB Extra Innings and MLB.TV (subject to local blackout).
- Rights to the All-Star Game.
- Rights to two League Division Series (one game sold to MLB Network, several games aired on Fox Cable).
- Rights to one League Championship Series.
- Rights to the World Series.
- TV Everywhere rights, streaming on computers, mobile and tablet devices.
- Rights to a nightly baseball highlights show.
- Spanish language rights to all games carried on Fox and Fox Cable.
- A weekly show produced by MLB Productions.
- 150 Regular Season games mostly aired on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday nights.
- Two League Division Series games, one coming from each League.
- Rights to the MLB All-Star Selection Show (coming from TBS).
- Rights to the All-Star Futures Game (coming from ESPN).
- Rights to the MLB First-Year Player Draft.
- 13 Sunday afternoon regular season games (down from 26) during the second half of the season with no local blackouts.
- Rights to one Wild Card Playoff Game.
- Rights to two League Division Series (one game sold to MLB Network).
- Rights to one League Championship Series.
- TV Everywhere rights, streaming on computers, mobile and tablet devices.
- Digital rights for Turner platforms including the Bleacher Report.
Overall, MLB did rather well for itself. Looking at the deals, in essence, Fox took half of Turner’s games for its cable portion of the contract to be aired either on FX or Fox Sports 1. The amount of games on over the air television goes down, but one can say cable came out the winner in the new contracts with more regular season contests and more playoffs.
The key point is the length of the deal, eight years bringing MLB plenty of stability into the next decade.
