US baseball league Major League Baseball will offer its domestic media rights to the market this week after periods of exclusive negotiations with existing broadcast partners expire.
The Fox network and cable-television broadcasters ESPN and Turner Broadcasting System, the league’s incumbent rights-holders, have had exclusive negotiating periods with the league in recent months. US sports news website Sporting News said that the final period of exclusive negotiations, with ESPN, ended this week.
The league believes an open auction for the rights will drive maximum revenues, the report said.
The NBCUniversal media group is reported to be keen on securing a package of rights for its NBC Sports Network cable-television channel. The broadcaster last held the league’s rights in 2000. “We think it’s a great property, and given the opportunity, we’d welcome the discussion,” Greg Hughes, NBC Sports Group senior vice-president of communications, said.
The league’s current agreements with ESPN, Fox Sports and Turner were signed in 2006 and expire at the end of the 2012-13 season. ESPN reportedly pays an average of $306 million (€244.8 million) per year for its package that includes the weekly live ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ match. Fox pays an average of $257.1 million per year for its package, which includes the All-Star Game and World Series.
Turner, which last month added to its package by acquiring rights to the new wild card games created by MLB’s revamp of its post-season, currently pays an average of $148.6 million per year.