Freddie Freeman #5 of the Atlanta Braves celebrates with Joc Pederson #22 after hitting a solo home … [+]
Baseball is in the midst of a lockout that is threatening the start of the 2022 season, but that isn’t preventing the league from getting richer.
The new multi-year streaming deal between Major League Baseball and Apple is worth $85 million annually over seven years, according to several sources familiar with the agreement who spoke with Forbes off the record. Under terms of the new pact, Apple will pay a $55 million rights fee and $30 million worth of advertising. Apple gets exclusive rights to telecast two “Friday Night Baseball” games each week (about 50 a season) in the U.S. and to eight countries overseas, via its Apple TV Plus. Apple has the right to exit the agreement after the first or second years.
In addition, Forbes has learned that MLB has come to terms with a two-year streaming deal with Comcast’s NBC Sports for the Mnoday and Wednesday Night games ESPN did not pick up in its new agreement with MLB, mainly to stream on Peacock. This deal starts this season and is worth $30 million annually.
Prior to the agreements with Apple and NBC Sports the annual average of the league’s natoional media deals—which gets split evenly among the 30 teams—that begin this season was $1.84 billion. That figure is now $1.96 billion, representing a 26% increase annually over the league’s previous naitonal media deals. The deals are a win for baseball is it boosts its overall media revenue and add substantial distribution of games and related content on streaming.
Baseball’s growing media pie.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeozanian/2022/03/09/mlb-deals-with-apple-and-peacock-worth-115-million-annually-combined/