A Reported 60-Game Clause Turns a Long MLB Lockout Into a Delay of the League's Next TV Deal. The Terms Are Still Disputed.

On 25 September 2026, Evan Drellich and Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reported that most of Major League Baseball's national television agreements would automatically extend from 2028 through 2029 if a work stoppage erases at least 60 games from each club's 2027 schedule. The existence of extension provisions had been reported earlier, by Forbes on 21 July; the 60-game trigger was the new detail. The collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on 1 December 2026, according to BroBible, which makes the clause a price tag on the length of any lockout. The difficulty is that the outlets summarising the report disagree on what the extra year costs. We could not read the contracts, and as far as the reporting shows, nobody outside the league and its partners has.

What has been reported, and by whom

This piece relies on outlets that summarise The Athletic's report rather than on the original, so each claim below is attributed to the outlet that carried it. Sports Media Watch (Derek Futterman, citing Drellich and Marchand) says that some national deals would run an extra year, through 2029, if a lockout cancels at least 60 games per club, and that it is not known which deals include the extension. Yahoo Sports, in an article crediting the same two reporters, says the existing national contracts expire after the 2028 season and puts MLB's national media revenue at about $2 billion a year. BroBible (Colin Witte, 28 September) describes the trigger as 60 games missed from each club's 2027 schedule and lists the national partners as Fox, TNT Sports, ESPN, NBC, Apple and Netflix, without a per-partner breakdown.

Three versions of the price

Everyone agrees on the trigger. The money is where the accounts split.

• Sports Media Watch: rightsholders still pay MLB for 2027 even if no games are played, and in return their rights extend into 2029 “for no additional fee.”
• Yahoo Sports: if play resumes after more than 60 games are lost, networks pay a reduced rate for 2029; if all of 2027 is lost, networks pay in full for 2027 and nothing for 2029. The article gives no dollar figure for the reduced rate.
• Awful Announcing, summarising the earlier Forbes report by Maury Brown: networks would keep paying scheduled fees during a lockout and the league would reimburse them for games missed. That article says the threshold of missed games is unclear.

These accounts cannot all be right at once. The reimbursement version and the pay-in-full version conflict on whether 2027 money is returned, and the free-extension and reduced-rate versions conflict on 2029. They may be describing different contracts, since Sports Media Watch notes that which deals carry the extension is unknown. We treat the terms as unsettled and do not state any of them as fact.

What 60 games means

Sixty games is 37% of a 162-game schedule. BroBible reports that the 2027 season is scheduled to open on 24 March, so 60 missed games would carry a shutdown to about late May. That makes the clause a cliff rather than a slope. A stoppage that ends before the threshold triggers no extension in any version we found; one that passes it changes who bears the cost.

Regional broadcast deals work differently. Sports Media Watch reports that most regional contracts cover roughly 125 to 145 games a season and would be adjusted pro rata, so lost games reduce those payments in proportion. No extension is described for them.

Why the clause could shift leverage

Take the version in which 2027 fees are paid in full and 2029 comes free. The 2027 payment then works as a prepayment for 2029 games. MLB would collect two years of national fees at old rates across three seasons, 2027 and 2028 in cash, with nothing new in 2029. That is our reading of the reporting, not contract language. In that case what MLB gives up is the 2029 fee it would otherwise have negotiated, and the delay of its next re-pricing by a year. The size of that loss depends on how much higher the next deal would be. As an illustration only: on a base of about $2 billion a year, every 10% increase the market would have paid in 2029 is worth about $200 million for that year. MLB has not said what increase it expects.

In the reduced-rate version, the loss shrinks by whatever the networks pay for 2029. In the refund version, the clause costs owners less directly but still delays the reset. In every version, the networks are made whole while the league carries the delay. BroBible's headline says networks “could be rooting for” a lockout to reach a certain length, a claim about incentives rather than a reported fact.

The delay also arrives in a particular market. Writing for FanSided on 23 July, Mike Phillips noted that deferring renegotiation by a year would push it into a period when networks might shift money toward NFL rights, which are renegotiated before 2029, and toward US rights for the 2030 and 2034 World Cups. He said the delay could cost the sport billions of dollars; he did not quantify that and it is his opinion, not a reported figure.

The counter-argument

The common view, which Phillips describes, is that owners will tolerate a longer stoppage than players, who have a limited window to earn. He argues the clause is a pressure point that could bring owners back to the table sooner. The opposite reading is also available. A cliff at 60 games rewards waiting until just before the threshold, and it gives the party who is indifferent to games already lost, in particular the owners who want a salary cap, a reason to hold out for more. Owners proposed a cap with a payroll floor in August, which we covered at the time and do not repeat here. Whether the clause deters a long lockout or lengthens one depends on which side values the 2029 reset more, and nothing in the reporting says.

What the reporting cannot establish

We have not seen the contract text. The reporting does not say which agreements contain the extension, whether the 60-game test is per club or league-wide in the contracts themselves, what the extension year costs, or whether 2027 payments are returned. It does not say whether MLB could renegotiate early to avoid the clause. The $2 billion annual figure is approximate and comes from a single outlet's summary.

What would settle it: reporting that quotes the contract language, or a statement from MLB or a partner. Until then, the safest summary is narrow. A clause reportedly ties the length of a 2027 stoppage to a one-year delay in MLB's next national TV deal, and the price of that delay is disputed.