ESPN's New MLB Schedule Is A Rare Win For Sports Fans
The majority of ESPN’s Major League Baseball games this season will air on Mondays and Wednesdays.
When ESPN declined to renew Sunday Night Baseball last year, it was widely seen as a pivot away from MLB. Instead, ESPN and MLB then reached a new agreement that includes MLB.TV integration and rights to a weekday slate of games during the summer.
ESPN announced details of the package on Thursday, with a focus on Monday and Wednesday evenings.
"The majority of ESPN’s Major League Baseball games this season — 20 of 30 — will air on Mondays or Wednesdays, hearkening back to the days when the network carried season-long packages on those two nights," Sports Media Watch reports.
"ESPN will air games on nine Mondays, including seven in a nine-week stretch from June 15-August 17. It will carry games on seven Wednesdays, including its season opener April 15 (Mets-Dodgers) and its season finale doubleheader on September 23."
(Getty Images)
Historically, ESPN aired Monday Night Baseball and Wednesday Night Baseball on a weekly basis until 2021, when it reduced its MLB coverage to primarily Sunday broadcasts during the regular season.
Under the new agreement, ESPN will again air MLB games twice per week and will reintroduce doubleheaders for the first time in five seasons.
The deal represents a mutually beneficial outcome. ESPN retains MLB rights at a lower per-game cost, while the league expands its national presence across more days of the week. During the summer, fans will now have access to roughly eight national broadcast windows per week across ESPN, NBC, Peacock, Fox, TBS, and Apple TV.
The schedule is a rare win for sports fans at a time when every new package seems to make it more costly and difficult to consume live sports.
The timing aligns with MLB’s recent growth. As OutKick argued this week, MLB has surpassed the NBA as the second-most popular sports league in the United States, behind the NFL. And unlike the NFL, expanding the national schedule does not dilute the product.
MLB is a juggernaut on the local level and during the World Series. But there is still an opportunity to grow its national footprint. The success of the World Baseball Classic proved that.
Fortunately, the league is in a position to do that this season, following new agreements with ESPN, NBC (Sunday Night Baseball), and Netflix (opening night and the Home Run Derby).