Fox, Major League Baseball Strike New Rights Pact

Major League Baseball and 21st Century Fox signed a new rights agreement that will keep the national pastime’s biggest games on Fox Sports and Fox Broadcasting for the next several years.

Under the terms of the pact, Fox Sports and Fox Deportes maintain exclusive television broadcast rights to the World Series, one League Championship Series, two Division Series and the All-Star Game. As in previous agreements, the league’s MLB Network will continue to have the rights to two games from the League’s Division Series that Fox is airing. Fox Sports will also expand its digital rights.

Terms of the deal could not be immediately learned, but Fox said the new agreement would make it “the home to baseball’s marquee events for the next decade.” Fox and Major League Baseball have been broadcast partners for more than two decades. The current eight-year pact between Fox and the league had been set to expire in 2021.

ESPN and AT&T’s Turner Sports also hold baseball rights.

But having rights to baseball may be of even more importance to 21st Century Fox than in the past. The company will be significantly smaller after the expected closing of a sale of the bulk of its assets to Walt Disney Co. in early 2019. After that transaction takes place, the “new Fox” will hinge largely on Fox News Channel, Fox Broadcasting and Fox Sports. The company is betting that live news and sports coverage will grow in value in an era when consumers can watch scripted entertainment at times of their own choosing, often through subscription-video services. In recent months. Fox has spent big to win new Thursday-night football rights from the NFL; professional-wrestling matches from WWE; and even Saturday afternoon bowling from the PBA.