Major League Baseball and FOX Sports announced a new multi-year, multiplatform rights agreement to expand the network’s television, digital and Spanish-language rights.
FOX Sports will remain the home of baseball’s marquee events for the next decade as they will televise the World Series, one League Championship Series, two Division Series and the All-Star Game. As has been the case since 2014, the postseason series televised by FOX Sports will rotate leagues each season.
“FOX Sports has been our national television partner for over 20 years and I could not be more pleased to announce the extension of our relationship through the 2028 season,” MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said.
“We value FOX Sports’ commitment to baseball and are excited to continue our partnership with this new agreement. Their innovative presentation of Major League Baseball through game telecasts and special programming across all their platforms has helped strengthen and elevate our sports’ popularity.”
In addition to the postseason and All-Star Game, FOX Sports will continue televising regular season games on Saturday afternoons, showing two per week, which comes out to 52 each season. That number is set to increase beginning in 2022.
This affects the Los Angeles Dodgers as their lead broadcaster on Spectrum SportsNet LA, Joe Davis, also works for FOX. Davis typically calls national games during the regular season on FOX Sports in addition to a Division Series each year.
Barring any significant changes, Davis will continue to miss a handful of Dodgers games each year for that reason.
FOX is paying $714 million annually from 2021-28 for these rights, so all of the talk in recent years about interest in MLB waning can surely be put to rest.
