MLB faces historic shift as potential lockout, media rights and league changes loom
Thursday’s Opening Day could be the calm before the storm for Major League Baseball.
The league’s collective bargaining agreement with its players expires at the end of this season. The owners, with the commissioner’s support, will almost certainly push for a salary cap (which would likely come with a salary floor to attract players to the negotiating table).
MLB owners never got a cap approved by the players’ union. It’s unclear whether the end of the 2026 season will lead to a different outcome, but MLB Players Association Interim Executive Director Bruce Meyer told ESPN last month. he is waiting lockout is “absolutely guaranteed”.
In addition to the end of the CBA, major changes are also taking place in baseball media rights. A third of the league’s teams did not have a local TV deal for this season until this week.
Nine MLB teams (Washington Nationals, Seattle Mariners, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Miami Marlins, Tampa Bay Rays, Cincinnati Reds, Kansas City Royals and Detroit Tigers) announced Wednesday that their brand new MLB-operated team channels will be carried by DirecTV.
Many of these teams were previously part of Main Street Sports (formerly Diamond Sports Group), which operates FanDuel Sports Networks (formerly Bally Sports). That organization is struggling with liquidation, and teams terminated their contracts with the company earlier this year due to unpaid payments.
10th team Atlanta Braves I’m starting a new network It was called BravesVision. Brave and Hire Spectrum announces multi-year distribution deal earlier this week.
MLB ideally wants to control the rights to all 30 teams by the end of the 2028 season so it can sell in-market local games to a broadcaster as a national package. It would be the modern alternative to regional sports networks and likely a coveted new package for streaming services like ESPN and Amazon Prime Video.
Additionally, at the end of the 2028 season, national media rights to all of MLB’s packages will expire, allowing the league to redistribute games to its partners and potentially option new ones.
The combination of NBC, ESPN, Fox and CBS/Turner has dominated national rights over the past few decades.
“The key to media negotiations is that you have all your rights,” MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred told me last year. “If you have all your content (all your playoffs, your regular season) available, there will be buyers, and I’m sure there will be buyers at a higher price for us.”
Manfred even floated the idea of expanding to 32 teams and Geographical reorganization of the leagueTo disrupt and even eliminate the American and National leagues that have existed for over 100 years.
Rise in TV ratings
Of course, it’s unclear how much of this hypothetical change will actually bear fruit.
But the conversion potential in MLB is greater than any of the other Big 4 professional leagues in the US
But still, baseball isn’t struggling, quite the opposite. The introduction of pitch time in 2023 has led to shorter games. increased participation And higher TV ratings.
MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred attends the annual Allen and Co. Championship held at Sun Valley Resort on July 9, 2025 in Sun Valley, Idaho, USA. Attended the Sun Valley Media and Technology Conference.
David A. Grogan | CNBC
More than 50 million people in the USA, Canada and Japan I watched Game Seven of the World Series last year – the most watched baseball game in 34 years. MLB recently wrapped up the World Baseball Classic, a global preseason tournament. approximately 11 million viewers on Fox and Fox Deportes for his last match.
MLB team valuations are up 13% over last year. The average MLB team is currently worth $2.95 billion. According to CNBC Sport data.
Yet the league’s profitability remains much worse than the NFL, NBA and NHL. CNBC’s calculations. In 2025, the EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) margin for MLB’s 30 teams was less than 2%. The team’s average revenue was $426 million and average EBITDA, including non-MLB ballpark activities, was $7 million. In comparison, the NFL’s comparable margin was 20%; 21% in NBA and 22% in NHL CNBC’s latest valuations.
The new CBA at the end of this season could be the first significant step towards a very different MLB. But similar to the WNBA, announced its new CBA Earlier this week, MLB must ensure that negotiations for a new labor agreement do not jeopardize a wave of positive momentum.
