ESPN’s coverage of Major League Baseball games — at least in its current form — will conclude at the end of the 2025 season.

Disney’s ESPN and Major League Baseball are breaking up after nearly 40 years together, a sign of how even the most durable content relationships have come under scrutiny in the streaming era, with sports rights increasing and entertainment conglomerates left to figure out how to pay the bill.

Major League Baseball will invoke an opt-out clause that will end their current deal with ESPN. ESPN and MLB have mutually agreed to end their current agreement, thus ending a partnership that began in 1990.

After a long-standing partnership between one of the most prominent broadcasting networks and one of the elite baseball leagues, an unexpected separation is on the horizon.

MLB and ESPN are reportedly ending their partnership. ESPN began broadcasting MLB games in 1990, and they reached a new seven-year deal in 2021. They had until March 1 to opt out of the agreement's final three years.