Major League Baseball Announces New TV Contracts

Baseball haters will not like this. Seems these folks like to tell you and remind you, again and again, how football is the king of sport and that no one cares about baseball. Better tell that to the TV networks.

Major League Baseball announced new TV contracts moving forward and, my gosh, for a dying sport, or one that "doesn't play well on TV," baseball sure did well at the bargaining table.

Last month, MLB renewed their deal with ESPN for a tidy sum of $5.6 billion. In easy to understand dollar amounts, that is double what ESPN was currently paying.

Now MLB is finishing up their deals with FOX and Turner Sports to extend their deals through 2021. Under the proposed deals, FOX will keep the World Series. Wait, I thought nobody watched! FOX will also retain one of the League Championship Series.

Rumors have it that MLB will double their total rights fees when all deals are complete. $800 million is the figure that folks who cover this stuff seem to be talking as MLB's total haul per year for TV rights.

FOX, for their investment, will get to air more regular season games and very possibly air more games for their cable enterprises.

Turner will broadcast one of the League Championship Series each year as well. They will continue to air Sunday day games throughout the season as well.

Yep, baseball is dead. The facts and figures say so. WRONG!