The MLB has now renewed its US broadcasting rights, set to expire in 2021, with two of its partners until 2028 and has seen a significant monetary increase from both, totalling 49% overall. The seven- year agreement with FOX Sports is valued at $728.6m per year (a 39% increase) while the new contract with Turner Sports is valued at $535m per year (a 65% increase). Both have some extended digital rights while the increase on Turner’s contract also reflects more games secured. The only broadcaster deal remaining to be renewed is with Disney  (ESPN), but even if MLB doesn’t secure a significant increase on its current $700m per year contract with Disney, we can expect the total US broadcasting rights for the sport to surpass $2bn per year. 

The last time the MLB rights were renewed  in 2012 (contract starting 2014) the increase was over 120%, with NFL and NBA also seeing significant increases on their long-term deals. But up until 2018, the US pay TV and TV advertising revenues were still high and rising, meaning that the value of broadcasting rights as a percentage of the US TV industry’s turnover still accounted for less than 7% of the total. Going forward, TV revenues are projected to decrease, meaning that if we expect the NFL and NBA to follow MLB and increase their total broadcasting rights value by 40%, by 2025 the rights of the three major sports could be equal to almost 12% of the US TV industry’s total turnover. Note however that we haven’t taken into account the ever-rising revenues of VoD services , which will play a bigger part in live sports going forward.