MLB and FOX Extend Their National Rights Deal for a Significant Bump
At the Owner’s Meetings, MLB extended its national broadcast deal with FOX through 2028 at a significantly increased rate.
Industry sources say MLB’s new rights deal w Fox Sports is a 7-yr deal covering the 2022-28 seasons and is worth about $5.1B, about a 50 percent bump from the current term.
— Eric Fisher (@EricFisherSBJ) November 15, 2018
So under new @MLB deal, @FoxSports is paying $714 million per year. Was $525 million under old contract #SportsBiz https://t.co/xzi1yrf5Ck
— Eben Novy-Williams (@novy_williams) November 15, 2018
From the fan perspective, this means you’ll still see games on FOX and FS1 through 2028 (including the postseason and All-Star Game, but also various weekly games). From a team perspective, that bump in annual revenue translates to about $6.3 million. You’d like to see a good portion of that trickling into baseball operations, but that certainly won’t happen for every club.
The most important aspect of this news for our purposes, though, is the reminder that, yes, even projecting 10 years into the future, live baseball rights remain a very valuable property. As the Cubs navigate the increasingly and ridiculously complicated rights landscape for their own new deal after the 2019 season, it’s good to know that baseball still has value. And, in terms of local rights, the Cubs are in a very elite tier of valuable properties.
Even as there are serious headwinds for their deal, at least they’ve got that going for them.
