ESPN Reveals Its MLB.TV Plan
If you have been reading along here at MickeyBlog, you know that there has been some controversy surrounding ESPN’s plans for MLB.TV.
As a quick recap, ESPN and Major League Baseball reached a new television agreement last year that will allow ESPN to carry MLB.TV and control the rights to all out-of-market games.
Photo: The Mirror
The question for fans was how ESPN would integrate MLB.TV into its streaming app.
A Double Paywall?
As first reported by Awful Announcing, ESPN’s original plan was to require fans to have both an MLB.TV subscription and an ESPN Unlimited subscription.
MLB
To get behind the paywall, they would essentially have had to pay $150 to MLB and then another $30 to ESPN.
After speculation, backlash, and plenty of controversy, ESPN has now officially announced its plans for MLB.TV.
ESPN’s Actual Plan
Despite previous reports, fans will not have to maintain both an MLB.TV subscription and an ESPN Unlimited subscription to access out-of-market games.
Photo: ESPN
Instead, current ESPN Unlimited subscribers will have the opportunity to purchase MLB.TV for $134.99 for the 2026 season.
Fans without ESPN Unlimited will be able to purchase MLB.TV for $149.99 per season. A free month of ESPN Unlimited will also be included.
Photo: MLB
“ESPN and MLB have a partnership rooted in decades of delivering marquee baseball moments to fans,” said Rosalyn Durant, Executive Vice President, ESPN Programming & Acquisitions.
“With MLB.TV now available through ESPN, we’re taking a significant step forward in reinforcing ESPN as the home of the MLB regular season while deepening the value proposition of the ESPN Unlimited plan, giving fans even more flexibility in how and where they watch all season long.”
Photo: ESPN
In the end, it looks like sanity won out, and ESPN balked at making fans subscribe to two services to watch baseball.
