Sign Up
7 min read
Published On21 Aug 2025
How baseball’s latest broadcast shuffle hits your wallet and your local sports bar’s bottom line
Baseball fans and sports bar owners may soon face a more complicated—and potentially more expensive—path to watching America’s pastime. Major League Baseball and ESPN are nearing an agreement that could fundamentally reshape how fans access MLB games, potentially forcing millions of MLB.TV subscribers to add yet another streaming service to their monthly bills.
The End of Direct-to-Consumer Simplicity
For over two decades, MLB.TV has offered fans a straightforward proposition: pay the league directly, get access to every out-of-market game. Simple. Clean. No middleman. That era appears to be ending.
Under the proposed agreement, ESPN would acquire exclusive control over the distribution of all out-of-market MLB regular season games digitally—essentially taking over MLB.TV entirely. This means fans who currently pay around $150 annually for MLB.TV would need to subscribe to ESPN’s direct-to-consumer service at $29.99 monthly—that’s $360 per year—and potentially still pay an additional fee for MLB.TV itself on top of that.
While Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reports the base MLB.TV price “should stay the same or could even drop,” the reality is stark: fans would be paying for two services instead of one. Even if MLB.TV drops to $100, you’re still looking at $460+ annually for what used to cost $150.
The Local Fan Squeeze Gets Worse
The pain intensifies for fans of five specific teams whose local broadcast rights ESPN would also acquire: the Cleveland Guardians, San Diego Padres, Minnesota Twins, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Colorado Rockies. These fans, whose regional sports network deals collapsed in recent years, have been able to purchase streaming rights directly from MLB without blackouts—a rare bright spot in baseball’s notoriously fan-unfriendly blackout system.
Now? They’ll likely need an ESPN subscription plus an additional team-specific fee to watch their home team’s games. That’s two paywalls instead of one, and potentially hundreds more dollars annually just to follow their local nine. The exact pricing structure remains unclear, but the direction is obvious: up.
National Games Musical Chairs
Adding to the confusion, ESPN would retain around 30 national games per season, though Sunday Night Baseball might actually move to a different night of the week. Meanwhile, other pieces of MLB’s broadcast pie are being carved up among tech giants:
- Netflix is reportedly eyeing the Home Run Derby
- NBC and Apple are considered top contenders for Sunday Night Baseball and first-round playoff games
- Apple already owns Friday night games
- Roku has early Sunday games
Each platform represents another subscription, another app, another monthly charge.
Sports Bars Face an Operational Nightmare
Perhaps no one faces a bigger headache than sports bar owners, who already shell out thousands—sometimes tens of thousands—of dollars annually for commercial viewing packages.
“We’re already paying through the nose for NFL Sunday Ticket, NBA League Pass, and multiple cable packages,” says one Las Vegas sports bar manager who requested anonymity. “Now we might need separate ESPN and MLB.TV commercial subscriptions? The costs just keep piling up.”
Sports bars typically pay 5-10 times more than residential customers for streaming packages due to commercial licensing requirements. If a bar currently pays $1,500 for commercial MLB.TV access, adding a commercial ESPN streaming package could easily push their baseball costs above $5,000 annually.
The operational complexity multiplies exponentially. Sports bars need to show multiple games simultaneously—a Dodgers fan at one table, a Yankees fan at another. Will the new system support the multi-screen setups bars depend on? Will they need multiple ESPN accounts? Can they easily switch between in-market and out-of-market games? The details remain murky, but history suggests the answer to “will this be simple?” is always no.
Blackout Confusion Intensifies
One critical question remains unanswered: how will blackout restrictions be managed under these new arrangements? Currently, MLB.TV blacks out games in your local market, forcing you to watch on your regional sports network. With ESPN controlling both out-of-market games AND in-market rights for five teams, the blackout map becomes even more convoluted.
Fans who currently rely on cable or other linear subscriptions for out-of-market games might find themselves completely shut out, forced into ESPN’s streaming ecosystem whether they want it or not.
The Bundling Trap Returns
ESPN pitches this as added value—sure, you’re paying more, but now you get all their NFL, NBA, and other content too! For the baseball purist who just wants to watch their 162 games without Stephen A. Smith’s hot takes, this “value” feels more like a hostage situation.
It’s the classic cable bundling problem that streaming was supposed to solve, now recreated in digital form. Remember when we celebrated cutting the cord to escape paying for channels we didn’t want? Welcome back to square one, now with more passwords to remember.
What to Watch For
As this deal moves toward finalization (reportedly as soon as September), fans should monitor:
- Confirmation of final pricing structures:Will MLB.TV truly drop in price, or is that just spin?
- Details on existing MLB.TV subscribers:Will current annual subscriptions be honored, or will everyone be forced to switch mid-season?
- Clarification on blackout restrictions:Will the chaos get better or worse?
- Commercial licensing terms:What will this mean for sports bars’ bottom lines?
A Pattern of Fan-Unfriendly Moves
This fragmentation of rights across multiple platforms represents a significant shift in how MLB games will be distributed and consumed. Already, dedicated fans need:
- Apple TV+ for Friday night games
- Roku for early Sunday games
- Their local RSN or streaming alternative for home team games
- TV for out-of-market games
- Now potentially ESPN+ as a gateway to MLB.TV
- Possibly Netflix for the Home Run Derby
- Maybe NBC/Peacock for playoffs
Each service has its own app, its own login, its own billing. Miss a payment on one? There goes part of your season. Want to watch every game of your favorite team? Better keep that spreadsheet handy.
The Timing Question
This deal would only run through 2028, suggesting MLB sees even more upheaval ahead. Commissioner Rob Manfred appears to be positioning for a massive rights auction before the 2029 season, which could scatter games across even more platforms.
There’s also the looming labor dispute. With a lockout widely expected after 2026, fans might be paying for all these subscriptions only to watch replacement players or no baseball at all in 2027.
What Fans Can Do
For now, current MLB.TV subscribers should enjoy what might be the last season of simple, direct access to baseball. Come 2026, following MLB comprehensively will involve navigating a more complex and potentially much more expensive subscription model.
Sports bars, meanwhile, should start budgeting now for what could be a 30-50% increase in their sports programming costs. Some may be forced to choose between raising prices, cutting other programming, or eating the costs.
The deal isn’t finalized yet—it could still change. But if recent history is any guide, when media giants and sports leagues negotiate, fans and small businesses rarely win.
The irony? Baseball is experiencing an attendance and ratings renaissance thanks to rule changes like the pitch clock. More people want to watch than in years. MLB’s response? Make it harder and more expensive to do so.
Welcome to the future of sports viewing: more middlemen, more subscriptions, more complications, and inevitably, more cost. The ongoing discussions signal that the days of simple, affordable access to America’s pastime are numbered.
Source: By Darragh McDonald | August 21, 2025 at 12:14pm CDT