📉 ESPN Is Out. 📺 TNT Is In.

A seismic shift in the sports media playbook—and what it means for leagues, platforms, and growth.

Author

Samuel Rogers
June 23, 2025

🧠 TL;DR (For Smart, Busy People)

  • ESPN & MLB's 35-year marriage ends in 2025—a casualty of streaming disruption.

  • TNT Sports snatches French Open rights through 2034, planting a global tennis flag.

  • Warner Bros. Discovery consolidates U.S. + EU rights under TNT Sports + Max.

  • This is not just a broadcast shuffle—this is the business of sport re-architecting in real time.

📊 Data First: What Just Happened?

⚾ ESPN & MLB Split (1990–2025)

  • 35 years of broadcasting ends after the 2025 season.

  • MLB games currently on Sunday Night Baseball, ESPN2, ABC, and ESPN+ will disappear.

  • ESPN's 2021 renewal deal ($550M/year) included just 30 exclusive games—a sign of contraction.

❝In 1990, 175 million Americans had cable. In 2025, fewer than 60 million do.❞

🎾 TNT Sports Acquires French Open Rights

  • U.S. broadcast rights through 2034 (10-year deal).

  • Simulcasting across TNT, Max (streaming), and TruTV whiparound show.

  • European rights also renewed—pan-continental control of Roland-Garros.

📈 Numbers That Matter:

Network

Deal

Platform

Avg Viewership (2024)

ESPN x MLB

$550M/yr

ESPN, ESPN+, ABC

1.44M per game

TNT x NBA

$1.2B/yr

TNT, Max

1.85M per game

TNT x Roland-Garros

Est. $65–75M/yr

TNT, Max, TruTV

0.9M (2024 U.S. Open avg)

💡 Blunt Insight

1. Streaming Eats Legacy Sports TV

  • ESPN is pulling back from expensive live rights to protect its ESPN+ DTC transition.

  • Warner Bros. Discovery is betting big on tentpole global events to build Max into the “sports HBO.”

2. Rights Fragmentation = Revenue Diversification

  • MLB will now sell its midweek & weekend slots à la carte—likely to Amazon Prime, Peacock, or Netflix (yes, Netflix).

  • Tennis, often dismissed in U.S. rights negotiations, now becomes Warner’s spring anchor before NBA Playoffs.

3. The Next Bidding War Is Already Here

  • With NBA rights expiring, Apple, Amazon, and Netflix are circling.

  • Expect global rights packages, alternate-language feeds, and data overlay experiences to define next-gen broadcasts.

📉 The Fall of ESPN’s Live Dominance

In 2010, ESPN owned:

  • Monday Night Football

  • Full slate MLB + NBA

  • College football primetime across all Power 5

In 2025?

  • Losing MLB

  • On shaky ground with NBA

  • NFL limited to MNF, mostly simulcast

🧮 2024 ESPN Linear Subs: 71M → 2025E: 58M
🏷️ Average Age of ESPN Viewer: 49.7 years

They are pivoting from dominance to survival. ESPN Bet, ESPN+, and studio programming now carry the brand.

🔮 Future Watch: Who Buys What Next?

Rights

Expiry

Contenders

NBA

2025

Amazon, Apple, NBC, ESPN (limited)

College Football Playoff

2026

Amazon, ESPN+, YouTube

NHL (2nd package)

2028

Apple, Warner, Fanatics

💬 Final Word

This isn’t about tennis or baseball.
It’s about what happens when live sports stops chasing eyeballs—and starts chasing ecosystems.

In the next 24 months, more than $50 billion in U.S. media rights will come up for renegotiation.
The winners won’t be networks.
They’ll be platforms.

🎯 If you’re a league:

  • Build your rights strategy around reach, data, and youth—not legacy ratings.

📈 If you’re an investor:

  • Bet on platforms integrating sports into subscription bundles (Max, Prime, Netflix Sports).

👨‍💻 If you're a founder or sports exec:

  • The next ESPN won’t be a cable channel. It'll be a data-native, fan-facing platform built for global and mobile.

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