Latest in Major League Baseball

UPDATED with official announcement and details: In Major League Baseball’s latest streaming foray, NBCUniversal’s Peacock will carry a slate of 18 games on Sundays in May. The arrangement follows Apple’s Friday night doubleheader announcement. Both deals had been reported last month, but NBCU officially confirmed the…

Sinclair Broadcast Group’s Rob Weisbord said he is “cautiously optimistic” about landing more Major League Baseball streaming rights despite public friction between the parties in recent months. “There are ongoing conversations. I’m cautiously optimistic, now that they got past the lockout,” he said, alluding to MLB’s…

UPDATED, 12:40 PM: And suddenly there’s joy in Mudville. Major League Baseball owners and players have struck a tentative deal to end the three-month lockout — a day after they appeared to have been at an impasse. Both sides still must ratify the new five-year collective-bargaining deal, which would set April as Openin…

Apple is making a big move in sports, announcing Friday Night Baseball, a weekly doubleheader with live pre and postgame shows available in eight countries on Apple TV+. The live streams will begin as soon as the Major League Baseball season gets under way, though that won’t be anytime soon. Due to an ongoing labor…

As negotiations on a new labor agreement continue to drag, Major League Baseball is pulling out the big gun threats. On Wedneday, a management spokesperson said MLB will begin canceling regular-season games if the league and the Players Association can’t come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement by…

Endeavor Group Holdings has announced plans to buy nine minor league baseball teams, including affiliates of the New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals. The company has created a new subsidiary, Diamond Baseball Holdings, and said it is in “late stage negotiations with a handful of other significant…

Sinclair Broadcast Group CEO Chris Ripley said the company’s regional sports networks division has “ample liquidity” to keep operating and reaffirmed plans for a major streaming launch next spring. Speaking with analysts during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Ripley said the company currently has…

The New York Mets, which were acquired before this season by billionaire financier Steve Cohen, have brought in Range Media Partners to “evolve” the baseball team’s brand. Range is a startup management firm founded a year ago with initial funding from Cohen’s Connecticut-based venture fund, Point72 Ventures. The…

Although it had been in the works for a while, today’s virtual upfront presentation by Fox Sports packed uncanny punch after Thursday’s big mask news. The Centers for Disease Control dramatically shifted its guidance, saying those vaccinated against Covid-19 could ditch their masks in most situations. Fox’s 45-minute…

Major League Baseball announced today that the 2021 All-Star Game will be hosted this summer by the Colorado Rockies at Denver’s Coors Field. The decision comes following last week’s MLB announcement that the game and draft would be relocated from Atlanta due to Georgia’s newly passed restrictive voting law. The game…

Major League Baseball has postponed a season-opening, three-game series between the New York Mets and Washington Nationals due to a Covid-19 outbreak. The teams’ opening game on Thursday had already been scratched after three positive coronavirus test results were confirmed by the Nationals. Today, the team confirmed…

Declaring in all-caps on Twitter that “BASEBALL IS BACK,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said venues like Yankee Stadium and Citi Field are cleared to be 20% full as of April 1. Sports venues that can hold at least 1,500 people indoors or 2,500 people outdoors can reopen on April 1, Cuomo said. Capacity indoors is 10% and…