Fox may give up its rights to televise any of Major League Baseball's American and National League Divisional Series playoff games under a new agreement, and those games could move to ESPN, and maybe a few to ABC, sources familiar with the negotiations say.
Fox is currently in negotiations with MLB to renew its broadcast TV rights package, which expires at the end of next season, and includes Saturday afternoon national games, most Divisional playoff games, the League Championship Series games, and the World Series.
Right now, Fox airs most of the Divisional playoff games in prime time, but ESPN airs some daytime divisional playoff games not aired on Fox, as part of a rights deal it inherited when its parent Walt Disney Co. acquired Fox Family Channel and converted it into ABC Family. ESPN is also televising Tuesday and Thursday night MLB regular season games under that same rights deal, but Fox retains negotiating rights with MLB to renew it for itself.
Sources said Fox may want to give up the entire Divisional series because it would give the network some relief for all of the advertising inventory it has to sell. One source close to the situation said, "first round playoff [ad] inventory is harder to sell, you don't get a lot for it, and production costs are high."
ESPN officials would not comment, but according to sources close to the network, ESPN would be interested in getting TV rights for the entire Divisional Series rights if they became available. "It's valuable programming but not cheap," one insider said.
Right now, the rights fee for the package that includes the cable Divisional playoffs, plus the Tuesday/Thursday regular season games is $100 million, but the biggest chunk of that is for the Divisional games where ratings are higher than the regular season games. Fox currently pays $417 million per year for its broadcast rights, including most of thsoe Divisional Games. ESPN recently reupped its Sunday-Wednesday regular season package, adding a third night of regular season games, Monday, for $296 million per year, up from $141.5 million per year under the existing contract, which expired at the end of this season.
Fox could be hoping that by dropping the Divisional Series games, it could shave off tens of millions off its new broadcast deal, and since MLB is already in business extensively with ESPN, it would be amenable to selling it the rights. MLB officials were not available for comment.
Still talking with baseball is Comcast's OLN, which continues to be interested in the regular season Tuesday-Thursday package or some facsimile of that. Sources at MLB said OLN remains in the picture as a possible MLB TV rightsholder, although there are other partners in discussion.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001349086
Fox is currently in negotiations with MLB to renew its broadcast TV rights package, which expires at the end of next season, and includes Saturday afternoon national games, most Divisional playoff games, the League Championship Series games, and the World Series.
Right now, Fox airs most of the Divisional playoff games in prime time, but ESPN airs some daytime divisional playoff games not aired on Fox, as part of a rights deal it inherited when its parent Walt Disney Co. acquired Fox Family Channel and converted it into ABC Family. ESPN is also televising Tuesday and Thursday night MLB regular season games under that same rights deal, but Fox retains negotiating rights with MLB to renew it for itself.
Sources said Fox may want to give up the entire Divisional series because it would give the network some relief for all of the advertising inventory it has to sell. One source close to the situation said, "first round playoff [ad] inventory is harder to sell, you don't get a lot for it, and production costs are high."
ESPN officials would not comment, but according to sources close to the network, ESPN would be interested in getting TV rights for the entire Divisional Series rights if they became available. "It's valuable programming but not cheap," one insider said.
Right now, the rights fee for the package that includes the cable Divisional playoffs, plus the Tuesday/Thursday regular season games is $100 million, but the biggest chunk of that is for the Divisional games where ratings are higher than the regular season games. Fox currently pays $417 million per year for its broadcast rights, including most of thsoe Divisional Games. ESPN recently reupped its Sunday-Wednesday regular season package, adding a third night of regular season games, Monday, for $296 million per year, up from $141.5 million per year under the existing contract, which expired at the end of this season.
Fox could be hoping that by dropping the Divisional Series games, it could shave off tens of millions off its new broadcast deal, and since MLB is already in business extensively with ESPN, it would be amenable to selling it the rights. MLB officials were not available for comment.
Still talking with baseball is Comcast's OLN, which continues to be interested in the regular season Tuesday-Thursday package or some facsimile of that. Sources at MLB said OLN remains in the picture as a possible MLB TV rightsholder, although there are other partners in discussion.
http://www.mediaweek.com/mw/news/cabletv/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001349086
