ESPN Gets New Contract

ESPN and Major League Baseball have reached an agreement on a new eight-year television rights contract, it was announced Wednesday.

The new deal, which runs from 2006 to 2013, reportedly is worth $2.368 billion.

Under its current five-year contract with baseball, ESPN was paying an average of $141.8 million a year for rights to regular-season games. Under the new contract, it will pay an average of $296 million a year.

The new contract allows ESPN to televise Monday night games in addition to the Sunday night games and Wednesday doubleheaders it now televises.

And the Monday night telecasts will not be subject to any blackouts. For example, if the Dodgers are on ESPN on a Monday night, the telecast can be shown in Los Angeles, side by side with a local telecast.

ESPN currently has exclusive Sunday night telecasts, which are shown everywhere, but the Wednesday telecasts are subject to blackouts in the markets of the competing teams. That will remain the case under the new contract.

The new agreement comes at a time when Comcast’s OLN, formerly the Outdoor Life Network, appears to be making a run at ESPN. OLN last month made a deal with the NHL, and is a front-runner for a late-season, eight-game Thursday-Saturday NFL package that is supposed to be available next season.

George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports, said that OLN’s threat was not a factor in ESPN deciding to renew its contract with baseball. ESPN has been televising Major League Baseball since 1990.

Commissioner Bud Selig implied a separate deal with OLN is still a possibility. A spokesperson for OLN declined to comment.

Under the new deal, a team will be able to appear on ESPN as many as five times on Sunday nights or 15 times over three years. Currently, a team is limited to 11 appearances in three years.

The new deal, according to what a source told Associated Press, calls for ESPN to pay baseball $273.5 million in 2006, $293.5 million in each of the following four years, $308.5 million in 2011 and $306 million in each of the final two seasons.

Baseball has a separate six-year deal with ESPN Radio that pays an average of $11 million. That deal started this season.

Additionally, in July ESPN reached an agreement with baseball that involves the Internet and new media, a deal that pays $30 million a year. And XM satellite radio has a deal with baseball that pays $60 million a year. Fox’s contract with baseball, which includes the postseason, runs through 2006.

The new agreement between ESPN and baseball does not include the postseason. But ESPN this season and in 2006 will televise up to 13 first-round games as part of a deal it inherited when parent company Walt Disney Co. purchased the Fox Family channel two years ago.

-- Larry Stewart

Chicago White Sox Manager Ozzie Guillen questions whether Damaso Marte is really injured and criticized the reliever for showing up late for a game last weekend.

“If Marte’s not ready to help this team, he can have a nice trip to the Dominican Republic by himself,” Guillen said.

Marte’s sore neck was examined in Chicago by team physician Charles Bush-Joseph.

“He said Marte is fine. He’s 100% to go,” Guillen said. “It makes you wonder if the injury was mentally or physically.”

Marte is 3-3 with a 3.43 earned-run average in 60 appearances.