Baseball Pulls Plug on ESPN

Unwilling to move its final three Sunday night games to ESPN2, major league baseball is taking them off national television and giving them back to teams to sell locally.

Baseball’s announcement Tuesday came after ESPN’s decision to move those games to ESPN2 in order to accommodate its new $17.6 billion, eight-year deal with the NFL.

This move could be the first step in a legal challenge between baseball and its major cable partner over breach of contract.

Baseball claims its contract is with ESPN, which is available to about 74 million homes, and balked at the network’s plans to move the games to ESPN2, which is available in about 60 million.

Baseball officials threatened to nullify the contract and move to another network during the season, but decided to wait until the off-season to either make a legal move or demand significant concessions from ESPN, a baseball lawyer said on the condition he not be identified.

In order to file a lawsuit, baseball would need to show tangible damages, something that would be difficult to prove if baseball found a new cable partner.

Also, the six teams participating in these games can profit by selling the rights locally.

The short-term losers in this dispute are baseball fans, who will be blocked from seeing San Francisco at the Dodgers on Sept. 6, St. Louis against Houston on Sept. 13 and the New York Yankees against Baltimore on Sept. 20.