The Walt Disney Company purchased the final 15% of the platform built by a company owned by the 30 … [+]
The Walt Disney
DIS
Major League Baseball has long been viewed as the gold standard for streaming live games. Starting in 2002, what was then called MLB Advanced Media streamed its first game, and in 2003 became the first major sports league to stream an entire season. Built off the success of MLBAM, the league spun up the BAMTech company and sought a suitor to sell to, ultimately culminating in the sale to Disney.
In 2017, Disney slowly began the process of the purchase, beginning with a 33% stake in BAMTech, in two installments totaling $1 billion, and under that agreement, it had the option to acquire a majority stake over several years. Disney then acquired an additional 42% stake, for $1.58 billion. Major League Baseball and its 30 team owners had retained a 15% of the company. Disney had the right to buy MLB’s interest starting five years from and ending ten years after the company’s September 25, 2017 acquisition date of BAMTech, and according to the report, the transaction has now taken place.
The complete sale of what is now Disney Streaming by MLB to the Walt Disney Co. totals $6 billion, or $200 million to each of the league’s owners, notwithstanding costs to build BAMTech out.
Key to the sale, as BAMTech was a separate company not tied to Major League Baseball revenues, yet owned by its 30 owners, the prior installments and now the final $900 million do not count as baseball-related revenues. While each of the owners will now collect $30 million from the final 15% equity sale, the owners are not beholden to consider using the revenue towards incurring player talent or other aspects, such as ballpark upgrades as part of the transaction. Fans and the media have been critical of clubs such as the Oakland A’s, Pittsburgh Pirates, Tampa Bay Rays, and other small-market clubs for not investing in player payrolls. The league continues to see a wide disparity in player payrolls ranging from Opening Day figures for the Los Angeles Dodgers at $284,730,745 to $48,056,154 for the A’s, a difference of nearly $237 million.
The sale highlights a core selling point for MLB to would-be owners as franchises come up for sale. The league is not just in the business of baseball; they are also a strong technology company. MLB.TV, the league’s streaming service dedicated to live-streaming games, registered over 11.5 billion minutes watched during the 2022 season, marking the first time in its history the service surpassed 11 billion. This season’s total is a +9.8% increase over last year’s tally of more than 10.5 billion minutes watched. MLB.TV achieved the previous record in 2021 when more than 10 billion minutes were watched for the first time.
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