On Thursday afternoon, just as we were putting the finishing touches on John
Ourand’s characteristically excellent private email, The Varsity, a seismic and yet entirely predictable piece of news came over the transom: ESPN and Major League Baseball, it was reported, had decided to end their multidecade relationship at the culmination of this upcoming season. Indeed, on some level, this was hardly a surprise. ESPN’s top executives have been gesturing for
months that they want to exercise an out in their contract and renegotiate their $570 million per year deal. After all, MLB’s recent secondary deals with Apple TV+ and Roku, worth about a combined $100 million per year, seemed to suggest that ESPN had overpaid and there was room to negotiate downward.
And yet the tenor of the divorce was a total shocker. After decades of partnership between the league and
the network, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred wrote to his franchise owners that “we do not think it’s beneficial for us to accept a smaller deal to remain on a shrinking platform”—fighting words, especially in the clubby, towel-slapping culture of sports media. I had long expected that ESPN and MLB might find some sort of goldilocks solution—perhaps a smaller tranche of games and highlights for a lower price—that would allow each side to claim victory. Alas, this 35-year marriage
now seemed over.
On a personal level, I admit, I was slightly crestfallen over the news. ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball has been a hallmark of my life since adolescence, and it will be sad to see its demise. Furthermore, amid an era in which the NFL and NBA have achieved unprecedented sports rights packages, baseball remains on uncertain footing. Its vast schedule and the collapse of the regional
sports network business have provided unique obstacles. A sport that came of age during the radio era appears to have a less obvious foothold in the streaming age.
John covered the news as it broke on Thursday, and he’ll have the latest beats in The Varsity on Monday. Meanwhile, Dylan Byers captured the ethos of the ESPN negotiations in his latest excellent dispatch,
No Joy in Manfred’s Mudville. Like all the best Puck stories, this tale captures the conflict between an institution’s past and present—a leitmotif here this week. McMahon on Fire & Politico’s Prince Valiant, Dylan’s previous piece,
articulated the dilemmas of CBS and Politico as they wade through uncertain waters. Similarly, in Even Republicans Have DOGE Anxiety Attacks, Leigh Ann Caldwell portrayed a party at its latest crossroads. And yet, perhaps no piece captured the tension more poignantly than Lauren Sherman’s
Notes From the Saks Apocalypse—a meditation on the future of multibrand retail as demonstrated by Saks Global, a roll-up of ole department stores Saks, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman.
But if you have time to read only one piece, I’d turn your attention to Matt
Belloni’s latest masterstroke, Why the Broccolis Gave Up Bond, which focuses on how the stewards of the 007 franchise capitulated to Amazon’s will and endless balance sheet. It’s a story about technological transformation—both what’s gained, and what’s lost along the way. And in that regard, it’s the story of our time, and precisely what you should expect
from Puck.
