Apple Steps up to the Plate with ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ Bid
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Last month, we heard reports that Apple was hoping to expand its MLB ambitions by adding Sunday Night Baseball to its lineup. Now, the move could soon become official as the iPhone maker has submitted its official bid to the MLB.
In a one-on-one with MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred, CNBC’s Alex Sherman reports that NBC, Apple, and ESPN are the three bidders for the league’s Sunday Night Baseball package. Somewhat surprisingly, ESPN opted out of the running earlier this year, which is what led to the June report by Sports Business Journal that Apple had emerged as one of the leading candidates to pick up at least some of the rights.
That report noted that NBC was also at the table, bidding for the entire slate of ESPN MLB rights, and many believed it was a shoo-in. However, Apple came forward with a more appealing offer, leaving MLB with the tough but increasingly common choice between a legacy media company with extensive reach and a digital platform that reaches fewer eyeballs but is willing to put more money on the table.
However, it may not be a matter of traditional broadcasting versus streaming in this case. Apple won the rights to Friday Night Baseball largely because the MLB wanted a much broader audience, both domestically and internationally. As an internet-based streaming platform, Apple TV+ has a far greater reach than regulated US broadcasters like NBC and ESPN. Friday Night Baseball brought these games to a global audience of baseball enthusiasts, launching in Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. It has since expanded to over 60 countries and regions. It’s tough for traditional broadcasters to compete with that.
However, it’s not just about international exposure. Three years ago, MLB Chief Revenue Officer Noah Garden noted that Apple had also provided MLB with a means to reach a larger domestic audience of “cord-cutters and cord-nevers,” which has led to lagging viewership over the past several years.
Apple pays $85 million annually for its Friday Night Baseball deal, which runs through 2028. However, the Sunday Night Baseball package could be considerably pricier. ESPN bowed out earlier this year because it felt that the $550 million it was paying for 30 games per season was disproportionate to Apple’s $85 million deal, which typically hosts around 50 games, or the $10 million that Roku pays to stream 18 games a year.
Of course, Sunday Night Baseball is a marquee package that’s been a staple of MLB broadcasting for 35 years, whereas Friday Night Baseball didn’t exist until Apple and the MLB created it in 2022. So, the Sunday Night Baseball rights are understandably more expensive; it’s just a question of by how much.
ESPN and MLB had a bit of a messy breakup, with Manfred bluntly telling MLB owners that the sports network wasn’t worth its time. “We do not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform,” the MLB Commissioner said. Still, he didn’t rule out the two sides coming to an alternative arrangement, and ESPN also claimed to be open to a new partnership if the details could be worked out to the satisfaction of both parties.
While Sports Business Journal declared Apple a frontrunner last month, that equation may change now that ESPN is back at the table. However, it’s also possible that the MLB may choose to divvy up the rights. CNBC’s Sherman says that Manfred may only be willing to let ESPN partially back into the tent, with a potential deal that would “include five MLB teams’ local rights,” for the Arizona Diamondbacks, Cleveland Guardians, Colorado Rockies, Minnesota Twins, and San Diego Padres.
ESPN might also be willing to pay more for those exclusive local rights, while MLB could potentially pull in more than the $550 million it was making before by selling the package to two bidders. In that case, Apple will likely still be in the running as it’s hard to imagine ESPN and NBC, which play in the same broadcast markets, agreeing to share the package.
