According to a report from the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand, Major League Baseball has recently engaged in “serious” and “substantial” talks with Apple with regard to weeknight broadcasting rights, specifically to the Monday- and Wednesday-night package previously aired by ESPN. Should a deal be reached, Apple would presumably broadcast the games on Apple TV+, the company’s subscription streaming service that competes with Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and Amazon Prime Video, among others. Apple, the world’s most valuable publicly traded company, recently attained a $3 trillion market valuation.
Though the move wouldn’t exactly represent something wholly new for MLB — regular-season games have been carried on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter in recent seasons, and speculation that MLB might seek to sell the games ESPN had dropped has been rampant since the network’s new deal was announced — it would reflect a shifting sports media landscape. Amazon, a direct competitor with Apple in several arenas, recently reached a deal with the NFL to poach Thursday Night Football from Fox to the tune of $1 billion per season, and NBC has made many Premier League soccer matches available exclusively on Peacock, its own streaming service.